Daily Archives: 10 Dec 05

L.A. worried about riots if ‘Tookie’ executed

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“Williams, 51, is scheduled to die by lethal injection at San Quentin State Prison on Tuesday. However, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is currently weighing Williams’ request for clemency. It’s not clear when a decision on that might come.

Fearing a repeat of the 1992 race riots in which 52 people died, police, schools and community groups have been told to prepare for violence if clemency is not granted.” (CTV)

Depressed Hamsters Shed Light on Seasonal Disorder

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“As the days grow shorter and cold, and darkness settles in, some begin to feel a little blue — hamsters and people alike.

Up to 20 percent of Americans report they feel more depressed during the winter months as a result of a condition known as seasonal affective disorder. Now scientists have shown that hamsters experience the same sluggishness when their exposure to light is reduced. By studying these sad hamsters, the researchers hope to find new ways of helping people combat seasonal depression.” (ABC News)

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Galaxy Collisions Dominate the Local Universe

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“More than half of the largest galaxies in the nearby universe have collided and merged with another galaxy in the past two billion years, according to a new study using hundreds of images from two of the deepest sky surveys ever conducted.

The idea of large galaxies being assembled primarily by mergers rather than evolving by themselves in isolation has grown to dominate cosmological thinking. However, a troubling inconsistency within this general theory has been that the most massive galaxies appear to be the oldest, leaving minimal time since the Big Bang for the mergers to have occurred.” (National Optical Astronomy Observatory News)

Architects plan kilometre-high skyscraper

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“Blueprints for a kilometre-tall skyscraper have been drawn up by UK architects, who hope to see the record-breaking structure commissioned in Kuwait.

At 1001 metres, the enormous tower would be almost twice the height of the world’s tallest building today, the Taipei 101 in Taiwan, which stands at 509 metres. The new building would also dwarf the Burj Dubai, a building under construction in Dubai that is expected to stand 700-800 metres tall once completed in 2008.

…Mohsen Zikri, a skyscraper expert with the UK engineering company Arup, says such an immensely tall building would pose extraordinary challenges for its designers. For example, it could be tricky to include enough elevators (lifts) to move people up and down efficiently.” (New Scientist)

SNARF

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Smart inbox cuts email drudgery: “If opening your groaning email inbox on returning from vacation fills you with dread, help is at hand. Free software developed by Microsoft Research in Redmond, Washington, will sort through your inbox and prioritise messages from people it deems are most important to you.

The program groups emails by sender, and then prioritises senders according to the number of times that you have communicated with them recently and the frequency with which you reply to them. So you should be able to home in on emails that are likely to be especially urgent or interesting.

Called the Social Network and Relationship Finder (SNARF), the software was released online on 30 November. It works with Outlook, but may soon be configured for Yahoo and Gmail.” (New Scientist)

Why Condi roiled Europe

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Why Condi roiled Europe – Los Angeles Times: “Many Americans will be puzzled, and perhaps even a little hurt, that Europeans reacted with such incredulity to this week’s denial by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that the U.S. has been ghosting suspected terrorist prisoners to countries where they are likely to be tortured.

Let me explain.” — Chris Mullin, member of the British Parliament (Los Angeles Times)

The Cookie That Comes Out in the Cold

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“Mallomars, not a year-round delicacy, …return to supermarket shelves in the fall after a warm-weather break.

…If there is something vaguely quaint about Mallomars because they are available only during certain seasons, there is also something venerable. They are as old as the Federal Reserve System and Camel cigarettes. Unlike crossword puzzles, which also made their debut in 1913, they have not undergone a name change. When The New York World published that first puzzle, it was a “word-cross.” Mallomars did not begin life in 1913 as Marsomalls.” (New York Times )

The article leads one to ponder: why are 70% of the nation’s Mallomars sold in the New York area? Why have they refrained from reformulating the cookies so they do not melt in the summer? And, most important, what exactly is wrong with eating a melty Mallomar, for those of us who would prioritize year-round availability?? (Our more civilized ancestors must have had more of a thing about chocolate stained hands than I do — or, certainly, more than my children do at least. Consider how the longterm success of the marketing decision to advertise M & M’s as the candy that “melts in your mouth, not in your hands.”)