Home  »  Headline News

On:

than our politicians – Humans aren’t always rational, but ants almost always are. Maybe we have something to learn from them. If we go extinct, insects may end up being the next dominant species here on earth.

This is not the case of humans being “stupider” than ants. Humans and animals simply often make irrational choices when faced with very challenging decisions. Researcher Stephen Pratt says, “This paradoxical outcome is based on apparent constraint: most individual ants know of only a single option, and the colony’s collective choice self-organizes from interactions among many poorly-informed ants.”
read more

On:

Stressed? Most of us are at one time or another, and the last thing we need is for our immune systems to let us down during busy times. But if you’re under stress, you’ll get sick more often. And if you get Swine Flu, you may have to deal with the military: the Defense Dept. wants to establish regional teams of soldiers to assist civilian authorities in the event of a significant outbreak of the H1N1 virus this fall.

On the CNN website, Barbara Starr reports on a plan to have the military work in conjunction with the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Since by “military,” we assume they mean the National Guard, the question is: can they spare them from the wars we’re fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan?
read more

On:

Scientists don’t agree on how many mass extinction events in earth’s history were triggered by a space rock crashing into the planet’s surface. However, most do agree that an asteroid collision 65 million years ago (among other things) was what brought an end to the age of dinosaurs. The outer planets Saturn and Jupiter protect us from many of these potential impacts, as was shown on July 20, when a huge scar appeared on Jupiter’s surface, evidence of a comet impact. However, this is not always the case, and12,600 years ago North America was struck by a massiveobject that ended the ice age and gave rise to flood legendsaround the world.
read more

On:

UPDATE – A swarm of 4 significant to strong earthquakes struck thewestern Pacific off Mexico and the Gulf of California today.The strongest was an earthquake measuring 6.9 on the Richter Scale, which struck 76miles off the coast of Baja California this morning and wasfelt strongly in San Diego, where buildings were evacuated,including San Diego City Hall. This follows 5.9, 5.8 and 5.0quakes inthe Gulf of California earlier today.

The Pacific quake was expected to produce a smalltsunamialong the northern coast of Baja California. There were noreports of damage in the relatively empty northern part ofBaja, which would have received the strongest effect of thequake 6.9 quake.
read more