We’ve reported on meteors have crashed through the roofs of houses and even almost hit people. Recently, in Delaware, a hunk of hot space metal crashed through the roof of an S.U.V.!
In the Delaware News Journal, Alan J. McCombs writes about an object that, despite being small (16 inches), “sliced like butter” through the roof of an S.U.V. parked on a neighborhood street.
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We now know that genes make us fat, which came as a surprise to many of us. Most of us have always assumed we inherited our height, and now researchers have identified the gene that makes us tall (or short). And why in the world do some of us have straight hair, while other people’s hair is curly?
In LiveScience.com, Charles Q. Choi writes that scientists have discovered that curly hair gets less tangled than straight hair. French biophysicist Jean-Baptiste Masson asked hairdressers count tangles the tangles in the hair of over 200 people for a week. 123 of these people had straight hair and 89 of them had curls. It turns out that straight hair gets tangled almost twice as much as curls.
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UPDATE: High School inspections – Recent headlines on mainstream media have announced that there are antibiotic-resistant superbugs out there that are worse than AIDS. Is this true–and if so, how can we protect ourselves against them?
Researchers at the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) and Prevention stated that invasive infections with MRSA could have mortality rates that would exceed those attributed to HIV/AIDS, emphysema, and even homicide. Scientists have discovered a strain of bacteria that can cause ear infections in children that is resistant to all FDA-approved antibiotics for the treatment of ear infections.
What can we do? Believe it or not, one of the BEST things to do is to wash your hands, and make sure your kids do too!read more
Climate change may carry a higher risk of flooding than was previously thought.
According to BBC News, “Efforts to calculate flooding risk from climate change do not take into account the effect carbon dioxide (CO2) has on vegetation. Higher atmospheric levels of this greenhouse gas reduce the ability of plants to suck water out of the ground and ‘breathe’ out the excess?Their reduced ability to release water back into the atmosphere will result in the ground becoming saturated.”
Global warming also creates more rain. In LiveScience.com, Andrea Thompson writes that NASA is reporting that “Global warming will make severe thunderstorms and tornadoes a more common feature of US weather.”
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