So THAT'S what the sun looks like.

I wouldn't know. The weather's been very weird 'round these here parts.

Not to mention the ginormous migraine that I like to call the 2010 Gulf Oil Spill Clusterfrench is giving me high blood pressure.

So I need calm down and focus on something beautiful and awe-inspiring. Like this:

The big yellow thing is the Sun. But look at the upper right section. See those two dark blips? The one on the left is the Shuttle Orbiter Atlantis and on the right is the International Space Station! Incredibly, Thierry caught them as they passed directly in front of the Sun! To give you an idea of how talented Thierry is, the entire transit lasted just over half a second.

... Mind you, Atlantis had just started its pitch maneuver, designed to show its belly to the crew on the ISS so they can inspect it for heat tile damage. That means this image was taken shortly before the Orbiter docked with the station, on May 16th. Thierry was in Madrid specifically to get this shot.

Get a good look. This is the last mission of Atlantis (unless it’s needed as a rescue mission later this year), so we won’t get too many more views like this.

Aaaah. I feel better now.

(link)

Uh-oh.

Anyone who's watched a zombie movie or two knows this can't be good:

Aug. 7, 2007 — Microorganisms locked in Antarctic ice for 100,000 years and more came to life and resumed growing when given warmth and nutrients in a laboratory.

Researchers led by Kay Bidle of Rutgers University tested five samples of ice ranging in age from 100,000 years to 8 million years.

"We didn't really know what to expect. We knew that microorganisms were really hardy," Bidle, an assistant professor of marine and coastal sciences, said in a telephone interview.

Friday Morning "Hey look, it's a quiz" Blogging

Right Brain/ Left Brain Quiz The higher of these two numbers below indicates which side of your brain has dominance in your life. Realising your right brain/left brain tendancy will help you interact with and to understand others. Left Brain Dominance: (6) Right Brain Dominance: (11) Right Brain/ Left Brain Quiz

Props to Jeff at God of Biscuits for the inspiration.

What Sex Is Your Brain?

Regardless of your gender, do you think more like a man, or a woman?

Leave it to the BBC to come up with a quiz to find the answer. I took the quiz, of course. (Anything that'll generate a blog post! Kidding. Or am I?)

Some of the results I received weren't anything I didn't know about myself already. For example, I'm highly empathic and suck at figuring out how systems work. Let's throw Calculus in that "systems" group, while we're at it. My overall brain score is close to the middle of the continuum (biased toward female), where you have female-type brains on one side and male-type brains on the other. I guess that means I typically think like a woman, except in some instances where I think like a man.

Whatever that means.

There were also some other interesting tidbits I learned (don't worry, it's not all about me):

1. I'm highly perceptive and have a good ability to remember where things are (tell that to me when I'm frantically searching for my car keys some mornings).
2. I'm attracted to men with masculine faces.
3. I'm a right-brainer, meaning I "excel in visual, spatial, and intuitive processes.
4. Men often think a person's eyes are sending signals of desire when that's not the case at all. Ha!

Anyhoo, if anything, it's a fun way to pass the time and possibly learn something new.

Click here to find out how you think. Oh yeah, and make sure you have a ruler handy when you do it.



(Props to AR for the link.)

A bit of good news for a change

Not that I'm going to go buck wild or anything, but:

LOS ANGELES, California (Reuters) -- Marijuana smoking does not increase a person's risk of developing lung cancer, according to the findings of a new study at the University of California Los Angeles that surprised even the researchers.

They had expected to find that a history of heavy marijuana use, like cigarette smoking, would increase the risk of cancer.

Instead, the study, which compared the lifestyles of 611 Los Angeles County lung cancer patients and 601 patients with head and neck cancers with those of 1,040 people without cancer, found no elevated cancer risk for even the heaviest pot smokers. It did find a 20-fold increased risk of lung cancer in people who smoked two or more packs of cigarettes a day.

Silicone or Saline?

Why is there even a debate about this? I mean, silicone breasts are probably more "realistic," but why would anyone put their lives in danger for that? To me, it reeks of pure vanity.

Check out the part of this New York Times article where 74-year-old Carolyn Wolfe discusses the strings of silicone coming out of her eyes, ears, and nipples when her silicone implants ruptured. Is that hot?

Get a grip, ladies. If you must get implants, at least get the safer saline kind.