Wednesday, May 18, 2011

British University Stung by Bee loss



British University Stung by Bee loss 
by James Foytlin

Its an odd tale one reminiscent of a creepy sci-fi thriller ,a British university has been stung by a Bee theft .On Tuesday the university reported the theft of several thousand bees that were part a multi-million dollar neuroscience research project .Scottish Police are appealing for information after four bee hives containing  British black bees were stolen from a medical school in the city of Dundee.Police are keen to trace a white van and two men that were seen near the area on May 8.

Dr Chris Connolly lead researcher on the Dundee neuroscience project, who had reported the bees missing Sunday said in the ultimate understatement ,"This theft will undoubtedly hamper our research,"

The bees are described as "very unique" and identification should be easy. Dundee University's medical school has been investigating the potential effect of pesticides on bee learning and health. Dr. Connolly has speculated that who ever did this knows what they are doing and that the bees may have been stolen for breeding, or for selling to specialist bee-keepers.

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Jetman Yves Rossy


Jetman Yves Rossy
by James Foytlin

Yves Rossy and his Jet Pack made a low key historic flight over the Grand Canyon. The Swiss adventurer, dubbed JetMan, weathered a set back Friday when he had to cancel his flight last minute due to red tape and various safety issues.The FAA only gave Rossy the green light less than an hour before he was scheduled flight Friday.

Despite the setback Rossy did not give up and on Saturday strapped his Jet Pack back on and took to the skies for a five-mile and eight-minute flight. Rossy has in the past rocketed above the English Channel as well as Swiss Alps.

Rossy's custom-built jet suit weighs 120lb with a  79" wing span. It's four engines give it enough thrust to reach average speeds of 125mph .

JetMan Rossy, who flew fighter jets for 17 years in the Swiss Air Force soared 200 feet above the canyon rim reaching speeds of up to 190mph before opening his parachute and landing safely on the canyon floor.  .

Monday, May 16, 2011

1997: Chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov resigns after 19 moves in a game against IBM's Deep Blue



1997: Chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov resigns after 19 moves in a game against IBM's Deep Blue
by James Foytlin 

On May 11, 1997, a new world chess champion was created when grandmaster Garry Kasparov resigned after only 19 moves in a game against IBM's Deep Blue. The chess-playing computer was developed by scientists at IBM. This was the sixth and final game of their match, which Kasparov lost two games to one, with three draws.

Garry Kasparov, was a chess prodigy from Azerbaijan. At 21 Kasparov beat the reigning champ Anatoly Karpov to become the youngest world champion in history. Kasparov  complied a FIDE (Federation International des Echecs) score of 2800, and a winning streak of 12 consecutive world chess titles. At the time of the match with Deep Blue Kasparov was considered to be the greatest chess player of all time.

Early Chess-playing computers had little success playing against accomplished chess masters , but all that changed in 1985, with "Chiptest" developed by a Carnegie Mellon doctoral student named Feng-hsing Hsu . Hsu went to work for IBM, and in 1989 as part of a team led by developer C.J. Tan created a computer capable of competing against the best of the best chess players in the world. Thus the supercomputer, Deep Blue was born. Deep Blue could calculate 100 billion to 200 billion moves in the three minutes . The time allotted to a player per move in standard chess match.

Deep Blue first challenged Kasparov in 1996, but was no match for the grandmaster known for his remarkably unpredictable play.  Kasparov went on to defeat the computer by switching strategies mid-game. Deep Blue challenged again In 1997, however Kasparov abandoned his traditional swashbuckling style, taking  a more defensive approach. Unfortunately this played in the Deep Blue's strength's and Kasparov finally went down to defeat .

Sunday, April 24, 2011

Happy Easter ,Pope: Humanity isn't random product of evolution


VATICAN CITY – Pope Benedict XVI marked the holiest night of the year for Christians by stressing that humanity isn't a random product of evolution.

Benedict emphasized the Biblical account of creation in his Easter Vigil homily Saturday, saying it was wrong to think at some point "in some tiny corner of the cosmos there evolved randomly some species of living being capable of reasoning and of trying to find rationality within creation, or to bring rationality into it."

"If man were merely a random product of evolution in some place on the margins of the universe, then his life would make no sense or might even be a chance of nature," he said. "But no, reason is there at the beginning: creative, divine reason."

Church teaching holds that Roman Catholicism and evolutionary theory are not necessarily at odds: A Christian can, for example, accept the theory of evolution to help explain developments, but is taught to believe that God, not random chance, is the origin of the world. The Vatican, however, warns against creationism, or the overly literal interpretation of the Bibilical account of creation.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110423/ap_on_re_eu/eu_vatican_easter_vigil_4

Saturday, April 16, 2011

Who is John Galt ?



For the uninitiated Atlas Shrugged, the movie is the adaptation of Ayn Rand’s 1957 classic novel. The novel, which centers around railroad executive Dagny Taggart as she fights to keep her business a float as American society crumbles around her, and descends into deeper and deeper recession .

In the novel Rand dramatized her unique philosophy in an intellectual mystery story that integrated ethics, metaphysics, epistemology, politics, economics and sex. She considered herself primarily a fiction writer, but realized that in order to create heroic fictional characters, she had to identify the philosophic principles which make such individuals possible.

http://www.manhattanstyle.com/arts-entertainment/movies/who-is-john-gault/

Thursday, April 7, 2011

DJ CANDY : When the words fail the music speaks


DJ CANDY : When the words fail the music speaks

She turned 16 on March 25th .Dee Jay Candy was born in Jersey City New Jersey . She’s been home schooled since she was 4 .Dee Jay Candy has been spinning for over a year now and is going to pursue her education in pre law/political science while simultaneously looking to achieve her goals as a DJ.

Most afternoons you’ll see her working the vinyl .She hooks up her 1200 and her mixer in seconds. She got the vinyls from my boyz and that’s how she practices. She knows Serato ,what cable is what and practices on vinyls and Serato learning the real way first, real old school way. Her mixes have that real old school beat , not faked but real the vinyl way . Better then some who call themselves DJ’s even sets her 1200 in battle style.

What inspired her about djing is that Dee Jay Candy sees music as a form of communication to peoples hearts and souls and she also goes by the motto ”when words fail, music speaks” . According to her her manager Emily Success Coppola the CEO of Addiction Entertainment ,”I saw that she took it quite seriously, so i invested in her dream.”

http://www.manhattanstyle.com/arts-entertainment/celebrities/dj-candy-when-the-words-fail-the-music-speaks/