The Ultimate Vampire Resource and Directory

Mon Oct 5, 9:07 pm ET

COLUMBIA STATION, Ohio – An Ohio bride and ghoul have vowed to love each other and haunt and howl at the moon together at a Halloween-themed wedding. Sixty-one-year-old Jack Holsinger and 44-year-old Connie Spitznagel were both made up as pale-faced vampires for their scare-emoney Saturday night at a haunted house near Cleveland. The two chose the location because it's operated by the same people who own a campground where the couple met.



Holsinger arrived in a coffin inside a hearse, and the coffin was carried to the altar by six pallbearers. Minister Greg Kopp was dressed as Jason in the "Friday the 13th" movies. After the vows were exchanged, he ordered Holsinger not to kiss his new bride but instead to bite her on the neck.



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Information from: The Chronicle-Telegram, http://www.chronicletelegram.com

Mon Nov 2, 9:31 pm ET

SIMI VALLEY, Calif. – A 28-year-old clerk at a Christian bookstore in Simi Valley has been arrested on charges of peeping at customers in the restroom with a video camera. Police said the man was cited and released on suspicion of peeping by means of an electronic device Sunday after a customer spotted the device hidden among boxes in the corner of the bathroom of the Family Christian Book Store.



The 40-year-old woman and her husband called police to report the suspiciously placed camera.



Sgt. Dwight Thompson said the recording shows the suspect hiding the video camera in the bathroom because it was taping as he positioned it.



Thompson says investigators believe the incident was isolated because the victim and the suspect are the only people seen on the video.

Mon Nov 2, 4:34 pm ET

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – A second attempt to sell a crypt on top of Marilyn Monroe's final resting place has failed, with not a single bid received for the burial spot in a celebrity-filled Los Angeles cemetery.



Widow Elsie Poncher is trying to sell her husband's crypt to pay off the mortgage on her Beverly Hills home. On selling the crypt, Poncher had planned to move her husband, who died in 1986, to an adjacent crypt intended for her.



But a $4.6 million bid submitted through online auctioneer eBay Inc in August fell through when the unidentified bidder pulled out.



A second auction on eBay with a reserve price of $500,000 also failed, with a notice on the online trading website saying it had closed with no bids on the marble mausoleum where Monroe was laid to rest in 1962.



The crypt is located at the Westwood Village Memorial Park cemetery, home to celebrities including Dean Martin, James Coburn, Roy Orbison, Truman Capote, Natalie Wood, Carl Wilson, Minnie Riperton and recent arrival Farrah Fawcett.



The space next to Monroe's vault was sold in 1992 to the publisher of Playboy magazine, Hugh Hefner, for $75,000.

By Robin Lloyd, Special to LiveScience.com



posted: 05 July 2006 11:40 am ET



A heart attack seems to strike out of nowhere, but it actually involves a sequence of steps that build over years to culminate in a crisis experienced over minutes or hours.



The typical fatality of a heart attack is a man over 65 years old, but they can occur at any age in men and women. Women's heart attacks are more likely to involve "silent" symptoms that are harder to recognize than men's. About 1.2 million Americans suffer from heart attacks annually, and about 40 percent die from them.



Recent research shows that marital spats or the loss of a loved one both increase the risk of heart problems.



Heart attacks can be signaled by nausea, dizziness, a shortness of breath, palpitations, unusual sweating, and the classic pain in the chest that radiates to the extremities (called angina). Inside, a catastrophic number of heart cells are starving to death for lack of oxygenated blood, and the heart loses its ability to pump.



The pump



The heart is muscular organ. The average heart beats 100,000 times and pumps about 2,000 gallons of oxygenated and nutrient-rich blood daily. Blood first travels from the heart to the lungs where it is re-oxygenated before it returns to the heart to be pumped out to a superhighway of arteries to supply oxygen and nutrients to the brain, digestive tract, and rest of the body's tissues and systems.

By Jim Dawson, Inside Science News Service



posted: 02 February 2009 04:33 pm ET



People living in residential areas with high levels of noise from road traffic appear to suffer more heart attacks than people living in quieter neighborhoods, according to a new study by researchers at the Swedish medical university Karolinska Institute in Stockholm.



Goran Pershagen, who led the study, said 1571 people from the Stockholm area who had suffered heart attacks between 1992 and 1994 were compared with a control group from the same area. The addresses of all the individuals were indentified and the level of noise estimated.



Exposure to air pollution and other heart attack risk factors were also gathered using questionnaires and interviews, the researchers said. Once people with impaired hearing or exposure to other sources of noise had been eliminated from the study, the researchers found that there was a 40 percent higher risk of a heart attack in people exposed to traffic noise exceeding 50 decibels — a relatively quiet level of noise; heavy traffic is usually measured at between 80 and 90 decibels.



"More research will be needed to establish a definite correlation between road traffic noise and [heart attacks], but our results are supported by other studies showing the cardiovascular effects of noise," Pershagen said.



The possible link between noise and heart attacks should be taking into account when planning new roads and residential areas, he added. The study was published in the journal Epidemiology.

Yes, it is getting near to the time of one of the year's great meteor shows, the 18 November Leonids. This year try to do more than view the meteors, try to hear them. That doesn't mean listening for a sonic boom, or counting 5 seconds per mile between you and the meteor, it means experiencing a new phenomenon.



All meteors produce VLF radio waves, oscillating from a few kHz to 30 kHz. Our ears of course are not radio receivers. However they are surrounded by transducers that are very common: aluminum foil, thin wires, pine needles, or dry, frizzy hair. Transducers are the names given to devices that convert one kind of energy into another, in this case VLF radio waves into sound waves.



The actual method that this works is very simple: radio waves induce currents in electrical conductors. If they are strong enough they cause the conductor to vibrate. If that vibration is within the range of human hearing then we can hear them.



This field of study was inhibited years ago by Edmund Halley. He had heard of people hearing meteors, quickly did the math, and pronounced the whole thing an auditory hallucination. Although not a psychologist he had the credibility in physics and astronomy that people bought in to his explanation.



However, in the past few years scientists have been experimenting with nanotechnology. They found that simple structures act as transducers. Other researchers started scaling up the experiments, someone made the connection, and voila, we had an explanation that did involve physics not psychology.



Who do we have to thank for understanding the physics of this issue? Colin Keay who is a physicist at the University of Newcastle in Australia. He has coined the term "electrophonic meteor sounds", descriptive and to the point. His thesis is that when a meteor speeds through the atmosphere the air around it becomes a plasma which traps lines of magnetic force. If the plasma become turbulent so do the lines of magnetic force. Eventually the plasma cools, the magnetic fields relax, and the rebound produces the VLF radiation.



For thousands of years, perhaps, folks have been ridiculed for being sensitive enough to observe a very subtle experience. It looks like the rest of us were wrong!

By Joe Rao

SPACE.com Skywatching Columnist

posted: 01 November 2009

11:33 am ET



Circle Nov. 17 on your calendar, for early that morning a moderate to possibly very strong showing of annual Leonid meteor shower is likely.



The very strong display will favor those living across most of central and eastern Asia. In this region, meteor rates might briefly rise to a few hundred per hour (the time frame for the most intense activity is anticipated sometime around 21:40 GMT).



A far more modest, but still potentially enjoyable display of a few dozen Leonid meteors per hour is expected to favor North America. In the United States and Canada, eastern observers will be particularly well-positioned for maximum activity, expected sometime between 3:30 and 5:30 a.m. EST, when the radiant of the Leonid shower will be well up in the dark southeastern sky.



A meteor shower's radiant is the perspective point from which all the meteors would appear to originate if their paths were traced backward far enough. The higher the radiant is, the more meteors flash into view all over the sky (though meteors can appear anywhere in the sky, so focusing on the radiant is not necessary).



The Leonid radiant is within the so-called "Sickle" of Leo; a backwards question-mark pattern of stars that outlines the head and mane of the constellation Leo, the Lion. Hence the meteors are known as "Leonids."



Not in the East? Don't fret. Observers all across North America may experience a good Leonid show with "shooting stars" streaking across the sky every few minutes.



Also a big plus in 2009 is the lack of any interference from the moon. New moon is on Nov. 16, so skies will be dark for catching the fainter meteor streaks. And the first light of dawn will not break until shortly after 5 a.m. local time.



Europe and Africa appear largely out of luck. This year's first round of expected enhanced activity will happen chiefly during their daylight hours. The second, stronger outburst will occur during early evening, but that's hours before Leo comes above the horizon. Europeans might try watching before sunrise on the morning of Nov. 17, but are not likely to see more than 10 or 15 Leonids per hour.





Cosmic garbage



It may not sound sexy, but simply put, the reason for this year's anticipated good Leonid showing is due to cosmic garbage.



The Leonids are known to be made up of cosmic litter from a small – 2.2 mi (3.6 km) – dusty comet discovered by two astronomers in the late 19th century and christened Tempel-Tuttle. The Leonid meteors are thought to be the dusty legacy of Comet Tempel-Tuttle because the dust is moving around the sun in virtually the same orbit as the comet.



As the Earth encounters the debris left behind by the comet's previous passes through our orbit, these tiny fragments of the comet – typically no bigger than a sand grain or the occasional pea – impact our atmosphere at speeds of up to 45 miles per second (71 kps), causing them to blaze briefly but brightly in the night sky.



The Leonids are not a one-night stand. The dust from Tempel-Tuttle spangles the sky for a few nights every year in mid-November. This year, the peak is expected during the predawn hours of Nov. 17, but early-morning hours on the dates surrounding Nov. 17 could provide a decent show, too.



Tempel-Tuttle last passed near the sun and Earth more than a decade ago (in 1998) and for several years thereafter the Leonids put on some spectacular displays, producing many hundreds – even thousands of meteors per hour. But with the departed comet now cruising through the outer part of the solar system, we typically would not expect to see more than 8 or 10 Leonids during an hour's watch.



Yet if several meteor scientists are correct, this year will be atypical. The researchers have produced various models of the Leonid stream and all of them are indicating that the Earth will intersect a few "rivers of rubble" left behind by Comet Tempel-Tuttle.



Asian forecast



In particular, French astronomer, Jeremie Vaubaillon, Russian astronomer, Mikhail Maslov and Americans Bill Cooke and Danielle Moser of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office are all in agreement that material that was ejected from the comet's nucleus during the years 1466 and 1533 will likely produce a very strong meteor display over much of Asia.



"The year 2009 will not see a Leonid storm, but an outburst for sure," Vaubaillon said, adding that "there are still some uncertainties."



Last year, the material that was shed by the comet back in 1466 produced about 100 Leonids per hour.

This year, Earth will cross through the 1466 stream again, but this time much closer – 42,000 mi. (68,000 km) – to the center on Nov. 17 at around 21:40 GMT. This time favors central and eastern Asia (and it comes during daylight in North America). In addition, at about this same time, the Earth will also be passing through dust ejected by the comet in 1533. The consensus forecast among the astronomers for this year suggests anywhere from 130 to perhaps 300 Leonids per hour in Asia, but this spread has been calibrated chiefly using last year's Earth interaction solely with the 1466 stream.



"But nothing is known (about) the 1533 stream," Vaubaillon said.



North America forecast



About 12 to 14 hours before the main event, Earth is forecast to sideswipe a stream of dust that was loosed from the nucleus of Comet Tempel-Tuttle in the year 1567, passing to within 188,000 mi. (302,000 km.) of the stream's center. This interaction could provide smodest activity for North Americans.



The best guesstimate is for perhaps 25 to 30 Leonids per hour, which would most likely target a time frame sometime between roughly 3:30 and 5:30 a.m. ET (12:30 to 2:30 a.m. PT).



For North American observers, the emphasis might be on quality, not quantity; for while the numbers might not be exceptionally high as compared to Asia, a few of these meteors, though visible for a just a fraction of a second, might leave bright trails of ionized atoms in their wake that hang in the sky for many seconds – or possibly even minutes – as these tiny dust particles streak through our atmosphere at altitudes of 80 to 100 miles (130 to 160 km).



And seeing even just one such outstandingly bright meteor like that can make a cold early morning vigil worthwhile.



Advance practice



If you want to get started early, you can practice for the big event.



The first Leonid forerunners might be sighted as early as Nov. 10, although overall activity will be rather low and spotty – perhaps only a few per hour at most. Around Nov. 16, in the predawn, Leonid activity will noticeably increase to perhaps four to eight per hour.



Observers on the lookout for early Leonids might also notice a number of rather slow moving meteors appearing to emanate from around the constellation of Taurus, the Bull (high in the southwest sky after midnight). These are the Taurid meteors and are most active between Nov. 5 and 12 when they can produce as many as five or 10 per hour.



Editor's Note: SPACE.com will provide a Leonids 2009 Viewer's Guide on Friday, Nov. 13.

By Sara Goudarzi, LiveScience Staff Writer



posted: 19 July 2006 01:00 pm ET



The Red Sea is parting again, but this time Moses doesn’t have a hand in it.



Satellite images show that the Arabian tectonic plate and the African plate are moving away from each other, stretching the Earth's crust and widening the southern end of the Red Sea, scientists reported in this week's issue of journal Nature.



Last September, a series of earthquakes started splitting the planet's surface along a 37-mile section of the East African Rift in Afar, Ethiopia.



Using the images gathered by the European Space Agency's Envisat radar satellite, researchers looked at satellite data before and after these activities.



Earth-shattering shift



Over a period of three weeks, the crust on the sides of the rift moved apart by 26 feet and magma—enough to fill a football stadium more than 2,000 times—was injected along a vertical crack, forming a new crust.



"We think that the crust and mantle melt slowly at depths greater than 10 kilometers [6 miles], where it is hotter, forming magma (molten rock)," said Tim J Wright, study co-author, a Royal Society University Research Fellow. "This magma rises through the crust because it is less dense than the surrounding rock.”



The magma collects in magma chambers at depths of 3 to 5 kilometers [1.9 to 3 miles] where the density is the same as the crustal rocks, Wright explained. "Slowly, the pressure has been building up in these chambers until last September when it finally cracked, breaking the crust along a vertical crack. The magma was then injected into this crack."



The intrusion of magma into the gap, rather than the cracking of the crust, is responsible for segmentation of continental drifts.



This is the first rifting episode to have occurred since 1970 and the largest single rip in the Earth's continental crust during the satellite-monitoring era.



"We knew about the steady rifting process in Afar, as Arabia moves away from Africa across the rift," Wright said. "And we knew that occasionally the strain that builds up slowly over centuries is released suddenly in rifting episodes. We did not know how big the deformation could be."



Slow drift



For the past 30 million years Africa and Arabia have been going through a rifting process, the same one that formed the Red Sea. In this amount of time, the 186-mile- wide Afar depression formed.



"The ground is continually moving—much more rapidly now than before the rifting episode," Wright told LiveScience. "On average, the two sides move apart at about 2 centimeters per year [0.8 inches per year]. But, as this event demonstrates, the motion is episodic and jerky. This poses considerable hazard to the local inhabitants, which is higher for the next few years."



This latest split, added to the long-term rifting process, which is tearing the northeast of Ethiopia and Eritrea from the rest of Africa, could eventually create a huge new sea. Although such processes could take millions of years to occur, this event has given scientists an unprecedented opportunity to monitor the rupture in real time.

LiveScience Staff



LiveScience.com livescience Staff



livescience.com – Mon Nov 2, 5:43 pm ET

A 35-mile rift in the desert of Ethiopia will likely become a new ocean eventually, researchers now confirm.





The crack, 20 feet wide in spots, opened in 2005 and some geologists believed then that it would spawn a new ocean. But that view was controversial, and the rift had not been well studied.





A new study involving an international team of scientists and reported in the journal Geophysical Research Letters finds the processes creating the rift are nearly identical to what goes on at the bottom of oceans, further indication a sea is in the region's future.





The same rift activity is slowly parting the Red Sea, too.





Using newly gathered seismic data from 2005, researchers reconstructed the event to show the rift tore open along its entire 35-mile length in just days. Dabbahu, a volcano at the northern end of the rift, erupted first, then magma pushed up through the middle of the rift area and began "unzipping" the rift in both directions, the researchers explained in a statement today.





"We know that seafloor ridges are created by a similar intrusion of magma into a rift, but we never knew that a huge length of the ridge could break open at once like this," said Cindy Ebinger, professor of earth and environmental sciences at the University of Rochester and co-author of the study.





The result shows that highly active volcanic boundaries along the edges of tectonic ocean plates may suddenly break apart in large sections, instead of in bits, as the leading theory held. And such sudden large-scale events on land pose a much more serious hazard to populations living near the rift than would several smaller events, Ebinger said.





"The whole point of this study is to learn whether what is happening in Ethiopia is like what is happening at the bottom of the ocean where it's almost impossible for us to go," says Ebinger. "We knew that if we could establish that, then Ethiopia would essentially be a unique and superb ocean-ridge laboratory for us. Because of the unprecedented cross-border collaboration behind this research, we now know that the answer is yes, it is analogous."





The African and Arabian plates meet in the remote Afar desert of Northern Ethiopia and have been spreading apart in a rifting process - at a speed of less than 1 inch per year - for the past 30 million years. This rifting formed the 186-mile Afar depression and the Red Sea. The thinking is that the Red Sea will eventually pour into the new sea in a million years or so. The new ocean would connect to the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, an arm of the Arabian Sea between Yemen on the Arabian Peninsula and Somalia in eastern Africa.





Atalay Ayele, professor at the Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia, led the investigation, gathering seismic data with help from neighboring Eritrea and Ghebrebrhan Ogubazghi, professor at the Eritrea Institute of Technology, and from Yemen with the help of Jamal Sholan of the National Yemen Seismological Observatory Center.

WHERE TO BUY AMERICAN GASOLINE. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT TO KNOW. READ ON.

Gas rationing in the 70's worked even though we grumbled about it. It might even have been good for us!



Nothing is more frustrating than the feeling that every time I fill up my tank, I'm sending my money to people who I get the impression want me, my family and my friends dead. The following gas companies import Middle Eastern oil:

Shell........................................ 205,742,000 barrels

Chevron/Texaco.................... 144,332,000 barrels

Exxon /Mobil......................... 130,082,000 barrels

Marathon/Speedway............. 117,740,000 barrels

Amoco...................................... 62,231,000 barrels

And CITGO oil is imported from Venezuela by Dictator Hugo Chavez who hates America and openly avows our economic destruction! (We pay Chavez's regime nearly $10 Billion per year in oil revenues!)

The U.S. currently imports 5,517,000 barrels of crude oil per day from OPEC. If you do the math at $100 per barrel, that's over $550 million PER DAY ($200 BILLION per year!) handed over to OPEC, many of whose members are our confirmed enemies!!!!!

Here are some large companies that do not import Middle Eastern oil:



Sunoco.......................... 0 barrels

Conoco.......................... 0 barrels

Sinclair.......................... 0 barrels

BP / Phillips.................. 0 barrels

Hess. ............................. 0 barrels

ARC0............................ 0 barrels

Maverick....................... 0 barrels

Flying J. ....................... 0 barrels

Valero............................ 0 barrels

Murphy Oil USA* ........ 0 Sold at Wal-Mart , gas is from South Arkansas and fully USA owned and produced.

*Not only that but they give scholarships to all children in their town who finish high school and are legal US citizens..

All of this information is available from the U..S. Department of Energy and each company is required to state where they get their oil and how much they are importing.

We usually charge our phones, most of the time during the night, but occasionally while we are driving, we will use the plug in the car charger. Will definitely unplug it in the future.



I do this all the time . I guess I won't be doing it ANY more !



A few days ago, a person was recharging his mobile phone at home.



Just at that time a call came in and he answered it with the charging

Instrument still connected to the outlet.



After a few seconds electricity flowed into the cell phone unrestrained

and the young man was thrown to the floor with a heavy thud. As you can see, the phone actually exploded.





His parents rushed to the room only to find him unconscious, with a weak heartbeat and burnt fingers.



He was rushed to the nearby hospital, but was pronounced dead on arrival.



Cell phones are a very useful modern invention.



However, we must be aware that it can also be an instrument of death.



Never use the cell phone while it is hooked to the electrical outlet! If you are charging the cell phone and a call comes in, unplug it from the charger and outlet.

Mon Oct 26, 9:50 am ET

RIGA, Latvia – Scientists investigating a large crater initially believed to have been caused by a meteorite said a closer analysis Monday revealed it was a hoax.



Experts in the Baltic country rushed to the site after reports that a metorite-like object had crashed late Sunday in the Mazsalaca region near the Estonian border.



"This is not a real crater. It is artificial," Uldis Nulle, a scientist at the Latvian Environment, Geology and Meteorology Center, said after inspecting the site on Monday.



Earlier Uldis had said his first impression late Sunday was that the 27-foot (nine-meter) wide and nine foot (three-meter) deep crater had been caused by a meteorite. He said there was smoke coming out of the hole when he arrived.



Uldis and other experts who examined the hole in daylight on Monday said it was too tidy to have been caused by a meteorite.



"It's artificial, dug by shovel," said Girts Stinkulis, a geologist at the University of Latvia.



Dainis Ozols, a nature conservationist, said he believes someone dug the hole and tried to make it look like a meteorite crater by burning some pyrotechnic compound at the bottom. He added he would analyze some samples taken from the site.



Sigita Pildava, a spokeswoman for the State Police, said it wasn't immediately clear whether police would open an investigation into the hoax.



Inga Vetere of the Fire and Rescue Service said they received a call about the alleged meteorite on Sunday evening from an eyewitness. She said a military unit was dispatched to the site and found that radiation levels were normal.



Experts outside Latvia said it would be unusual for such a large meteorite to hit the Earth. The planet is constantly bombarded with objects from outer space, but most burn up in the atmosphere and never reach the surface.



In 2007, a meteorite crashed near Lake Titicaca in Peru, causing a crater about 40 feet (12 meters) wide and 15 feet (five meters) deep.



Asta Pellinen-Wannberg, a meteorite expert at the Swedish Institute of Space Research, said she didn't know the details of the Latvian incident, but that a rock would have to be at least three feet (one meter) in diameter to create a hole that size.



Henning Haack, a lecturer at Copenhagen University's Geological Museum, said when it comes to alleged meteorite crashes, "there always is a pretty large margin of error."

Mon Nov 2, 9:31 pm ET

NEILSVILLE, Wis. – The call came into the 911 dispatcher: "I don't want to hurt anybody. I'm drunk." And with that, Mary Strey, 49, of Granton, reported herself as a drunken driver about three miles northeast of Neilsville in central Wisconsin.



Clark County Sheriff's Chief Deputy Jim Backus said Monday that Strey's call on Oct. 24 led deputies to cite her for misdemeanor drunken driving with a blood-alcohol level double the legal limit to drive. She makes her first court appearance Dec. 10.



Backus said drunken drivers reporting themselves is rare.



In the 911 call, Strey said she wanted to report a drunken driver and the dispatcher asked if she was behind the suspect vehicle. "I am them," Strey said. She then followed the dispatcher's advice to pull over and turn on her flashers, telling him she had been "drinking all night long."





.

Tue Nov 3, 4:59 am ET

SYDNEY (Reuters) – People scared of flying can now press a button on their iPhone to help them deal with their panic.



Long-haul airline Virgin Atlantic Airways has launched an application, or app, for its Flying Without Fear course which boasts a success rate of over 98 percent. Apps are a source of information, games and other novelty ideas for users of Apple's iPhone and iPod Touch devices.



The airline said in a statement that this app was designed to help people overcome fear, be it of the unfamiliar aircraft, the strange noises a plane makes, or of losing control.



"Our first iPhone app will bring the benefits of our successful Flying Without Fear course to millions of people around the world who are now using mobile technology to make their lives better," Richard Branson, president of Virgin Atlantic, said in a statement.



"The app will put many travellers at ease and enable them to prepare for their first Virgin Atlantic flight."



The airline developed the app with Mental Workout, a company developing software to help people resolve issues and increase mental performance. A spokesman from Mental Workout said an estimated one in every three adults were scared of flying.



The Flying Without Fear app has an introduction by Branson, a video-based in-flight explanation of a flight, frequently asked questions, relaxation exercises and a fear attack button for emergencies with breathing exercises.



(Writing by Belinda Goldsmith, Editing by Miral Fahmy)

By Stuart McDill Stuart Mcdill – Mon Nov 2, 4:32 pm ET

BARCELONA (Reuters) – A company behind plans to open the first hotel in space says it is on target to accept its first paying guests in 2012 despite critics questioning the investment and time frame for the multi-billion dollar project.



The Barcelona-based architects of The Galactic Suite Space Resort say it will cost 3 million euro ($4.4 million) for a three-night stay at the hotel, with this price including an eight-week training course on a tropical island.



During their stay, guests would see the sun rise 15 times a day and travel around the world every 80 minutes. They would wear velcro suits so they can crawl around their pod rooms by sticking themselves to the walls like Spiderman.



Galactic Suite Ltd's CEO Xavier Claramunt, a former aerospace engineer, said the project will put his company (http://www.galacticsuite.com) at the forefront of an infant industry with a huge future ahead of it, and forecast space travel will become common in the future.



"It's very normal to think that your children, possibly within 15 years, could spend a weekend in space," he told Reuters Television.



A nascent space tourism industry is beginning to take shape with construction underway in New Mexico of Spaceport America, the world's first facility built specifically for space-bound commercial customers and fee-paying passengers.



British tycoon Richard Branson's space tours firm, Virgin Galactic, will use the facility to propel tourists into suborbital space at a cost of $200,000 a ride.



Galactic Suite Ltd, set up in 2007, hopes to start its project with a single pod in orbit 450 km (280 miles) above the earth, traveling at 30,000 km per hour, with the capacity to hold four guests and two astronaut-pilots.



It will take a day and a half to reach the pod - which Claramunt compared to a mountain retreat, with no staff to greet the traveler.



"When the passengers arrive in the rocket, they will join it for 3 days, rocket and capsule. With this we create in the tourist a confidence that he hasn't been abandoned. After 3 days the passenger returns to the transport rocket and returns to earth," he said.



More than 200 people have expressed an interest in traveling to the space hotel and at least 43 people have already reserved.



The numbers are similar for Virgin Galactic with 300 people already paid or signed up for the trip but unlike Branson, Galactic Suite say they will use Russian rockets to transport their guests into space from a spaceport to be built on an island in the Caribbean.



But critics have questioned the project, saying the time frame is unreasonable and also where the money is coming from to finance the project.



Claramunt said an anonymous billionaire space enthusiast has granted $3 billion to finance the project.



(Writing by Stuart McDill; Editing by Belinda Goldsmith and Miral Fahmy)

Mon Nov 2, 4:52 am ET

SYDNEY (Reuters Life!) – Bad moods can actually be good for you, with an Australian study finding that being sad makes people less gullible, improves their ability to judge others and also boosts memory.



The study, authored by psychology professor Joseph Forgas at the University of New South Wales, showed that people in a negative mood were more critical of, and paid more attention to, their surroundings than happier people, who were more likely to believe anything they were told.



"Whereas positive mood seems to promote creativity, flexibility, cooperation, and reliance on mental shortcuts, negative moods trigger more attentive, careful thinking paying greater attention to the external world," Forgas wrote.



"Our research suggests that sadness ... promotes information processing strategies best suited to dealing with more demanding situations."



For the study, Forgas and his team conducted several experiments that started with inducing happy or sad moods in their subjects through watching films and recalling positive or negative events.



In one of the experiments, happy and sad participants were asked to judge the truth of urban myths and rumors and found that people in a negative mood were less likely to believe these statements.



People in a bad mood were also less likely to make snap decisions based on racial or religious prejudices, and they were less likely to make mistakes when asked to recall an event that they witnessed.



The study also found that sad people were better at stating their case through written arguments, which Forgas said showed that a "mildly negative mood may actually promote a more concrete, accommodative and ultimately more successful communication style."



"Positive mood is not universally desirable: people in negative mood are less prone to judgmental errors, are more resistant to eyewitness distortions and are better at producing high-quality, effective persuasive messages," Forgas wrote.



The study was published in the November/December edition of the Australian Science journal.



(Writing by Miral Fahmy, editing by Belinda Goldsmith)

Mon Nov 2, 4:09 pm ET

Nearly 100 years later, the case and trial of Leo Frank is making headlines again. Doubts about the 1913 murder of Atlanta teen Mary Phagan and accused suspect Frank — said to be U.S. history’s only Jewish lynching victim — have long fueled conspiracy theories.



Tonight's PBS documentary, “The People vs. Leo Frank,” has revived the mysteries and public curiosity: Yahoo! search spikes for "Phagan" and "Frank" soared in advance of the show’s airing. Back in the day, the public would “stay tuned to see the latest bizarre, frightening development,” says a historian in “The People vs. Leo Frank.” Indeed, the century-old “whodunit,” CNN notes in one of its most popular articles today, touched on "every hot-button issue of the time: North vs. South, black vs. white, Jew vs. Christian, industrial vs. agrarian."



Leo Frank was raised in Brooklyn and later moved with his wife to Atlanta, Georgia, to manage his uncle’s pencil factory after graduating from Cornell University. Mary Phagan was one of Frank's employees, a white child laborer working to help support her family. On April 13, 1913, Phagan went to the factory to receive $1.20 in pay she was owed for the previous week. Frank gave her the check; Phagan was found dead at approximately 3am on April 14 by Newt Lee, the factory's night watchman.



Police initially arrested Lee and a young friend of Phagan's in connection with the crime, but soon focused their attention on Frank after his nervous demeanor and detailed answers to simple questions raised suspicions. Frank was later tried, convicted and sentenced to death based on what many people familiar with the case believe was the perjured testimony of the black man who actually killed Phagan, factory janitor Jim Conley. On the day Frank, 31, was to be executed by the state, then-Georgia Governor John Slaton, who doubted the strength of Frank's conviction after lengthy hearings introduced new evidence and a plea from the original trial's judge, commuted Frank's sentence to life in prison. For Slaton, the move was political suicide.



Predictably, the public reaction to Slaton's action was outrage. An angry mob screaming "kill the Jew" stormed the governor's mansion in protest and had to be fought off by armed militia men, while another mob calling themselves the "Knights of Mary Phagan" stormed the prison and kidnapped Frank. A former governor and the son of a U.S. senator were believed to be among the attackers. Frank was taken to Marietta, Georgia, the town where Mary Phagan was born, and hanged.



Frank's hanging helped inspire the founding of the Anti-Defamation League and provoked more than 3,000 Jews to flee the state. Leo Frank was posthumously pardoned for the murder of Mary Phagan by the state of Georgia in 1986.



“That my vindication will eventually come,” Frank is quoted as saying in the PBS documentary, “I feel certain.”





-- Brett Michael Dykes is a contributor to the Yahoo! News Blog

By David Zinczenko - Posted on Mon, Jan 07, 2008, 12:45 pm PST Dave Zinczenko's Mysteries of the Sexes Explained

by David Zinczenko a Yahoo! Health Expert for Relationships



Usually, this time of year, people are broadcasting their resolutions like they have their own cable TV audience.



They tell everyone and anyone they're givin' up

soda, hittin' the gym, keepin' the garage clean. Hear me, hear me, I'm going to change! Usually, though, these resolutions stick about as well as wet masking tape.



Instead, this year, try changing up a few resolutions so you can focus on your partner, and do so (here's the catch) without telling them what's coming. Why? Because your moves will be a whole lot more effective if your partner never sees them coming. The benefits: You'll improve your relationships, score major points, and make someone other than yourself feel good, too.



Resolution #1: I Will Worship The Foot



There's nothing wrong with the traditional body parts we may focus our attention on. But if there's one thing that couples crave more and more as the relationship grows, it's non-sexual touch - touching that's sensual with a touch of sexual.



Give your partner regular foot massages (without being prompted), and my bet is that other kinds of touching will increase. Dramatically.



Resolution #2: I Will Be An Online Auction Hawk



You know a relationship is in a rut when the gifts become more mundane than Weather Channel background music. This year - be it for your partner's next birthday or Valentine's day or the next gift-giving event - take some time to really nail it.



Figure out something meaningful from their life and track down a unique item that hits the sentiment perfectly. You'll have to use your imagination and sleuthing skills to come up with a great idea, but you'll score big. Thoughtfulness will always trump another Best Buy gift card.



Resolution #3: I Will Initiate Romance More Often Than My Partner For One Month



I know, I know - you may already be doing so. But if not, make it a point to initiate the romance more often, because chances are, if your partner's doing all of it, then he probably feels a mix of fatigue and frustration. If you can initiate more, he'll give back what you want in the bedroom - ad infinitum. It's the things he craves - and you will, too.



Resolution #4: I Will Replace The Sink Soap



Too often, we get caught up in the relationship biggies - money, sex, communication. Of course, those hot buttons can be the source of many a fight. But you'll go a long way in smoothing out kinks in the relationship by making a conscious effort to put the seat down, put the roll on, clean the dried milk from the counter, or whatever it is that your partner finds to be your little, nagging problems. Fixing the little problems helps solve the big ones.



Resolution #5: I Will Not Let My Partner See Me Naked



Of course, there's nothing wrong with showing off your body, especially if you're also making a resolution to lose a few pounds. For the easiest and most effective way to a sexier you, this article will help you lose weight and look great without ever being on a diet by choosing the best foods each and every time!



But what you'll be doing here is building up the mystery until your partner absolutely has to see you naked. Have a robe, or sheet, or pair of pants all around you, until it's absolutely time to disrobe. The build-up, the anticipation, the mystery - ah, it's the nectar of new relationships that often gets spoiled in old ones.

By David Zinczenko - Posted on Thu, Nov 29, 2007, 9:41 am PST Dave Zinczenko's Mysteries of the Sexes Explained

by David Zinczenko a Yahoo! Health Expert for Relationships



Everybody thinks they can spot a cheater a mile away. Adulterers, after all, have the same characteristics, right? Wandering eyes, secret cell phones, last name Sheen. If only it were that easy.



Unfortunately, we live in a society where people fall out of their fidelity flight patterns and take off on their own different courses all the time, even though we desperately want to believe that our partners won't be unfaithful. That's why it's important to know some of the traits and sneaky signals that are common in people who tend to be unfaithful in the relationships.



Now, I'm not suggesting you automatically end your relationship if your partner falls into one of these categories, but I do think that these are some signs you should be aware of - so you can be on the lookout for warnings of wandering.



Cheating Sign #1: He Doesn't Pay His Bills On Time



Some research shows that unreliability and carelessness is part of a personality trait called "low consciousness," which is a marker for infidelity. Makes sense. A guy who's careless about his own responsibilities is going to be just as careless about his relationships.



Cheating Sign #2: He's A Do-Gooder



What? Your guy contributes to the local orchestra fund, the church, and the alumni association, plus he volunteers to build houses for the homeless. How could a guy like that give into the temptation of midnight motel rooms?



A study just published in the November issue of the Journal of Applied Psychology found that when there's a blurry line between right and wrong (as there often is with matters of infidelity), the people who become the worst cheaters are actually the ones who think of themselves as having the highest moral standards.



Why? The speculation is that these people can justify their wrongdoings with explanations that they weren't doing anything wrong at all. Simply put, not following the Monogamy Rules (a faithfully popular Men's Health story) makes it hard for the Do-Gooder to live in his skin.



Cheating Sign #3: He's Rolling In The Dough



A study in the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy found that those people who earned more money were more likely to cheat than those who earned less. It's not because they have more income to open new credit cards, carry more cash, or spend more coin on mistress gifts. Some researchers theorize that those with lower salaries - and thus those who are more dependent on others in a relationship - are less likely to risk ruining the relationship.



Cheating Sign #4: He's A Yeller



While yelling and anger may not seem to be all that connected to cheating, a recent Australian study found that unfaithful partners show many of the same personality characteristics as abusive ones. Those who are more likely to be abusive (verbally or physically) are simply more likely to be unfaithful. What's already bad has the potential of getting even worse.



Cheating Sign #5: He's A Mirror Hog



Some research has shown that the single biggest trait of cheaters is-surprise, surprise-narcissism. These self-loving folks are so wrapped up in their own self-importance that they don't even consider the effect that cheating has on the other person. So what if I stray and have the occasional one-nightstand? I deserve to be happy. Have you seen these guns, baby!



And, yes, this works both ways, as Men's Health explained in "6 Signs She's Ready to Stray." Perhaps all of this might leave the guys wishing they had read "The 50 Things She Wishes You Knew About Her."

By Dr. Maoshing Ni - Posted on Wed, Oct 21, 2009, 12:43 pm PDT Dr. Mao's Secrets of Longevity

by Dr. Maoshing Ni a Yahoo! Health Expert for Alternative Medicine



With cold and flu season around the corner, it is more important than ever to bolster your immune system this fall and winter. Here are some natural, simple solutions that will help protect you!



1. Chestnuts bolster immunity

In both Asia and the Mediterranean region, chestnuts have been popular for centuries. Chestnuts differ from other nuts with their low fat content and high fiber. They have a mild, sweet taste and a crumbly consistency. An excellent source of potassium, folate, vitamins B6 and C, chestnuts strengthen the kidney-adrenal system and bolster the immune system to fight off the flu and combat infections. This flu season, introduce more chestnuts into your cooking: they are good roasted in the oven, cooked with chicken, lamb, beef, or pork, or in any dish with beans and legumes.



2. Stimulate your thymus

Your thymus is a fist-size gland located behind your sternum in the center of your chest. It plays a critical role in the functioning of the lymphatic and immune systems. It develops over time, reaching peak size when you are in your early 30s, then begins to physically diminish until it shrinks to the size of a pea around age 70. You experience the gland's waning as waning energy in your body.



To support thymus health, the Chinese use astragalus root. Studies show astralagus is an adaptogen, which means it corrects both high and low metabolic imbalances, acts on invaders wherever they attack the body, and promotes overall vitality. The usual dosage is 100 to 150 mg per day in capsules or you can drink astragalus tincture or tea.



Another way to stimulate your thymus is to use acupressure. With your index and middle finger, gently tap against the sternum (midway between the nipples) 50 times, in the morning and evening.



3. Immune-supporting herbs

You can use the following herbs to help strengthen your immune system:



• Ligustrum has undergone much research recently, which has revealed this herb's immune boosting functions. Its actions include increasing white blood cell production, phagocytosis, and T-lymphocyte help cell activities.



• Cherokee Rose is traditionally used to protect the body from external pathogens with its astringent properties. It is also one of the highest natural sources of vitamin C.



• Honeysuckle is a natural anti-microbial herb that has been used for centuries to increase resistance and fight against bacterial, viral, and fungal infections.



You can find these herbs in health food stores, online, and at the offices of acupuncturists and Chinese herbalists.



Or look into a formula that combines all of these herbs in one immune-boosting herbal formula, called "Perpetual Shield."



4. Be healthy with bee products

Royal jelly has long been regarded in Asia as a longevity tonic that enhances energy, virility, and immunity. Rich in vitamins and collagen, royal jelly is used to feed queen bees. An antibacterial protein in the substance, dubbed royalisin, is effective against certain bacteria, including streptococcus and staphylococcus.



Bee propolis is rich in flavonoids that have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. It also contains terpenoids that possess antibacterial, antiviral, antifungal, and antiprotozoan agents. Not unlike some prescription antibiotics, propolis prevents bacterial cell division and breaks down the invading organism's cell walls and cytoplasm.



Find royal jelly and bee propolis in enriched honey or in supplement form from herb shops and health food stores.



5. Beta-carotene Builds Immunity

Beta-carotene is a powerful antioxidant that improves immune function and promotes mucous membrane health. In fact, a 1997 study conducted by the Institute of Food Research in the United Kingdom suggested that dietary intake of beta-carotene can enhance cell-mediated immune responses. How to get these beta-benefits this flu season? Eat more orange-colored vegetables, including carrots, winter squash, butternut squash, pumpkins, sweet potatoes, and yams. Additionally, these are all an excellent source of Vitamin C, a famous immune support.



6. An all-in-one immunity soup

Cook up a broth of shiitake mushrooms, any kind of seaweed, cabbage, any type of squash, carrots, fresh ginger, oregano, and onion in chicken or vegetable stock. Shiitake mushrooms contain polysaccharides, sterols, and coumarin, as well as vitamins and minerals that increase your immune function. Seaweed cleanses the body, cabbage has ability to increase your body's ability to fight infection, ginger supports healthy digestion, and the remaining ingredients promote general health and well-being.

Eat this soup every other day to build a strong and healthy immune system.



7. Treat Your Body Right

Encourage your body to fight flu and other infections by giving it the care it needs.



• Get at least 7 hours of quality sleep every night. Studies show that your immune system function drops by an average of 60% after just three nights of poor sleep.



• Keep your stress level low with meditation, tai chi, or yoga.



• Dry body brushing daily can activate lymph circulation that is important to clear out toxic debris and stimulate immunity.



• If you feel your immune system has already been compromised and illness is on the way, consider this Cold & Flu elixir, which supports recovery as it boosts your immune system.



I hope you find the ways to build your immunity for a winter free from cold and flu! I invite you to visit often and share your own personal health and longevity tips with me.



May you live long, live strong, and live happy!



-Dr. Mao

COMMENTS

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brendabailey
18:38 Nov 05 2009

interesting advice and helpful, too! OH, BTW, how is that sweet baby of your's doing? How was the delivery (c-section)?

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POST COMMENT

By Dr. Maoshing Ni - Posted on Fri, Oct 30, 2009, 12:29 pm PDT Dr. Mao's Secrets of Longevity

by Dr. Maoshing Ni a Yahoo! Health Expert for Alternative Medicine





Soda, pop, cola, soft drink — whatever you call it, it is one of the worst beverages that you could be drinking for your health. As the debate for whether to put a tax on the sale of soft drinks continues, you should know how they affect your body so that you can make an informed choice on your own.



Soft drinks are hard on your health

Soft drinks contain little to no vitamins or other essential nutrients. However, it is what they do contain that is the problem: caffeine, carbonation, simple sugars — or worse, sugar substitutes — and often food additives such as artificial coloring, flavoring, and preservatives.



A lot of research has found that consumption of soft drinks in high quantity, especially by children, is responsible for many health problems that include tooth decay, nutritional depletion, obesity, type-2 diabetes, and heart disease.



Why the sugar in soft drinks isn’t so sweet

Most soft drinks contain a high amount of simple sugars. The USDA recommendation of sugar consumption for a 2,000-calorie diet is a daily allotment of 10 teaspoons of added sugars. Many soft drinks contain more than this amount!



Just why is too much sugar so unhealthy? Well, to start, let's talk about what happens to you as sugar enters your body. When you drink sodas that are packed with simple sugars, the pancreas is called upon to produce and release insulin, a hormone that empties the sugar in your blood stream into all the tissues and cells for usage. The result of overindulging in simple sugar is raised insulin levels. Raised blood insulin levels beyond the norm can lead to depression of the immune system, which in turn weakens your ability to fight disease.



Something else to consider is that most of the excess sugar ends up being stored as fat in your body, which results in weight gain and elevates risk for heart disease and cancer. One study found that when subjects were given refined sugar, their white blood cell count decreased significantly for several hours afterwards. Another study discovered that rats fed a high-sugar diet had a substantially elevated rate of breast cancer when compared to rats on a regular diet.



The health effects of diet soda

You may come to the conclusion that diet or sugar-free soda is a better choice. However, one study discovered that drinking one or more soft drinks a day — and it didn’t matter whether it was diet or regular — led to a 30% greater chance of weight gain around the belly.



Diet soda is filled with artificial sweeteners such as aspartame, sucralose, or saccharin. These artificial sweeteners pose a threat to your health. Saccharin, for instance, has been found to be carcinogenic, and studies have found that it produced bladder cancer in rats.



Aspartame, commonly known as nutrasweet, is a chemical that stimulates the brain to think the food is sweet. It breaks down into acpartic acid, phenylalanine, and methanol at a temperature of 86 degrees. (Remember, your stomach is somewhere around 98 degrees.) An article put out by the University of Texas found that aspartame has been linked to obesity. The process of stimulating the brain causes more cravings for sweets and leads to carbohydrate loading.



Carbonation depletes calcium

Beverages with bubbles contain phosphoric acid, which can severely deplete the blood calcium levels; calcium is a key component of the bone matrix. With less concentration of calcium over a long time, it can lower deposition rates so that bone mass and density suffer. This means that drinking sodas and carbonated water increases your risk of osteoporosis.



Add in the caffeine usually present in soft drinks, and you are in for even more trouble. Caffeine can deplete the body’s calcium, in addition to stimulating your central nervous system and contributing to stress, a racing mind, and insomnia.



Skip the soda and go for:



• Fresh water

Water is a vital beverage for good health. Each and every cell needs water to perform its essential functions. Since studies show that tap water is filled with contaminants, antibiotics, and a number of other unhealthy substances, consider investing in a quality carbon-based filter for your tap water. To find out more about a high-performance filtration system, click here.



On the go? Try using a stainless steel thermos or glass bottle, filled with filtered water. Enhance the flavor of your water with a refreshing infusion of basil, mint leaves, and a drop of honey.



• Fruit Juice

If you are a juice drinker, try watering down your juice to cut back on the sugar content. Buy a jar of organic 100% juice, especially cranberry, acai, pomegranate, and then dilute three parts filtered water to one part juice. You will get a subtle sweet taste and the benefit of antioxidants. After a couple of weeks, you will no longer miss the sweetness of sugary concentrated juices.



• Tea

Tea gently lifts your energy and has numerous health benefits. Black, green, white, and oolong teas all contain antioxidant polyphenols. In fact, tea ranks as high or higher than many fruits and vegetables on the ORAC scale, the score that measures antioxidant potential of plant-based foods.



Herbal tea does not have the same antioxidant properties, though it is still a great beverage choice with other health benefits, such as inducing calming and relaxing effects.



If tea doesn’t satisfy your sweet tooth, try adding cinnamon or a little honey, which has important health benefits that refined sugar lacks. For a selection of healthy teas that promote total body wellness, click here. Drink up!



I hope you find the ways and means to avoid soft drinks. I invite you to visit often and share your own personal health and longevity tips with me.



May you live long, live strong, and live happy!



--Dr. Mao





(I don't care!!!!! I love my Dr. Pepper, Sprite/7up, root beer, & orange sodas!!! lol)