Thursday, October 26, 2006

The 5 Hottest Majors

By Meghan Aftosmis

Undecided? These majors score the most job offers and bucks. Get ready to cash in, CG!

1 COMPUTER SCIENCE
WHY IT'S HOT:
One million new positions will be created in information technology by 2014. Enough said. "I talked to a Microsoft recruiter when I was a junior. Microsoft asked me to intern for the next two summers and then gave me a job!"
Carolyn, 23, program manager, Microsoft
JOB OPTIONS: Big-name companies include Microsoft, Intel, and Cisco, but companies doing anything from cloning research to filmmaking need computer science grads.

STARTING SALARY(*): $43,000-$57,000

2 NURSING
WHY IT'S HOT:
People are living longer, and the health industry can barely keep up with the increase in our elderly population. Registered nurses in particular are in increasingly high demand. "I applied to a hospital in November of my senior year, and they offered me the job during my interview!"

Heather, 23, registered nurse, surgical intensive care unit

JOB OPTIONS: You could work at hospitals, insurance companies, nursing homes, schools, and more.

STARTING SALARY: $37,440-$45,000

3 ACCOUNTING
WHY IT'S HOT:
After the accounting scandals at Enron and WorldCom, Congress is cracking clown on fraud. And that means accountants are in demand. "I interviewed with all the large accounting firms recruiting on my campus and received tour job offers."

Amy, 24, dispute analysis and investigations associate, PricewaterhouseCoopers

JOB OPTIONS: The big four (Deloitte, Ernst & Young, PwC, KPMG) are obvious choices, but even the FBI needs special agents with accounting backgrounds.

STARTING SALARY: $41,800-$52,000

4 BUSINESS MANAGEMENT
WHY IT'S HOT:
Training for administration and management is so versatile--it can get you in the door of almost any business and help you work your way up to CEO. "I graduated during the recession of 2003, but I still got offers from my top two choices and was able to find my second job easily."

Tara, 27, associate, Deutsche Bank

JOB OPTIONS: Finance companies, retail headquarters, and nonprofits are looking for analysts, associates, and coordinators.

STARTING SALARY: $34,000-$45,000

5 CHEMICAL ENGINEERING
WHY IT'S HOT: These undergrads were the highest paid of 2005 because they know what companies want: how to make new products safely and economically. "There were so many jobs available that the most difficult part was finding what interested me the most."

Alison, 23, research engineer, Compact Membrane Systems, Inc.

JOB OPTIONS: You could develop anything from new medicines and new beauty products to new plastics for use in appliances.

STARTING SALARY: $53,500-$60,000

If I were a paper doll, I could try on a new job every day!

(*) All figures are based on starting salaries offered to graduates with a bachelor's degree in each field during 2005 or 2006.

Did you know? Being a girl in a male-dominated major pays off--literally! Groups like the Society of Women Engineers offer female-only scholarships to entice more applicants.

Cosmo Girl, Sep2006

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Climbing The Ladder To Success

Firefighting careers are blazing hot!

Firefighters jump on their trucks while the alarm's still ringing, put out raging fires, track down arsonists, keep buildings fire-safe, and help injured people.

And that's only part of the job! A high school education is the first step into this competitive field. Bachelor's degrees (in fire science, natural resources management, or public administration) help firefighters advance in their careers.

Fire, rescue, and emergency medical services often go hand in hand. Most firefighters are certified as paramedics because they are often the first emergency workers to respond to an accident or a disaster scene.

Many people picture big red trucks and fire stations when they think of firefighters. In fact, firefighting jobs take many forms. Some firefighters are stationed aboard ships, in industrial complexes, in the wilderness, and at airports. Other firefighters teach fire safety in the community.

Throughout the country, from remote rural regions to big cities, there's plenty of work to keep firefighters busy. In 2004, they fought 1,550,500 fires in the United States, according to the National Fire Protection Association.

Interested in a job that goes from zero to 100 with the clang of a fire bell? Read on to learn about some hot options in firefighting.

Fire Chief: Top of the Heap
Until Debra Pryor decided to go into the field, she'd never seen a female firefighter. Today, Pryor supervises an entire fire department. As the chief of the Berkeley, Calif, Fire Department, she's in charge of a staff of 137 and is Berkeley's first female fire chief.

Pryor started out as a firefighter and worked her way up the ladder. Although it was hard for a woman to get into the fire service when she started, Pryor brought a special qualification to the table: a bachelor's degree. Her department required firefighters to have a high school diploma; supervisors had to have college degrees. Pryor says having the extra education right from the beginning gave her an edge. She went on to earn a master's degree.

After 21 years in fire service, Pryor is a jill-of-all-fireservice-trades. She can do anything 'from pulling down a burning roof to piloting a fire engine on an emergency run. She's also the department's most publicly visible member and its spokesperson.

Pryor says fire service is a "fabulous profession" for anyone who believes in community service. "My definition of community service is leaving the community better than I found it, and this," she says, "lets me give back."

Fighting 300-Foot Flames
When a building burns, the fire is usually put out in a matter of hours, sometimes minutes'. But wildfires can last days--even weeks. And when Wildfires get out of control, they can destroy thousands of acres.

Firefighters on wild lands, such as forests and fields, can sometimes be trapped by a wildfire, which can spread quickly. So firefighters in those areas must work fast to contain and fight the blazes. They use tools such as rakes and shovels designed for fighting wildfires. Some operate heavy equipment such as bulldozers and excavators to dig trenches to contain the fires and clear pathways to get to the burning area. Sometimes a blaze can catch a bit of wind or dry vegetation and spark a "jump" over barriers built to contain them. So wild-land firefighters' are trained to keep safe using signal flares, lights, medical equipment, and temporary shelters that protect them from smoke and flames.

Jeremy Bennett is the fire management officer for Menominee Tribal Enterprises in Neopit, Wis. He's fought wildfires for 12 years. He says the most important quality for a forestry firefighter is the ability to work as part of a team. "Certain dangers, such as 150 to 300-foot flames, dead trees falling over silently, rolling rocks, helicopters and planes flying just above the tree canopies … are part of the job," he says. Forestry firefighters watch out for one another.

Each fire presents a chance to learn something new, he says. "I have a passion for this profession and am very lucky to be doing something I enjoy."

Facing Sticky Situations
Shutting down the power in an ice-cream factory could have been a sticky mess, but the Hazardous Materials (HazMat) Division of the Kansas City, Mo., Fire Department took care of an ammonia leak faster than you can bite the end off a cone. They received a nice tip from the ice-cream maker too.

"They treated us to a couple of gallons," HazMat Battalion Chief Curtis Edwards says. The frosty treat was a nice change for a team specializing in one of firefighting's toughest areas. HazMat teams can face chemicals like add, gasoline, or ammonia; radioactive materials; and even weapons of mass destruction.

Firefighters must put in many hours of training to master the gear, such as breathing apparatuses and gas monitors, needed to face those situations. In addition, HazMat team members must learn to recognize chemical symbols and know the proper equipment to use to protect themselves and the public from lethal or dangerous chemical combinations.

"It's like a treasure hunt or a puzzle. You never know what you've got," Edwards says, adding that students interested in HazMat should take courses in chemistry, biology, and toxicology. Knowledge of those subjects helps the team determine how a substance can affect people and animals.

As scary as some of his team's calls have been, Edwards recalls a few funny incidents-like the time they responded to a call about a suspicious leak and found … pancake syrup.

Preventing Fires
You don't wait until your car runs out of oil to add a quart or two. Instead, you check the engine often and add oil when needed to keep your ride rolling. Fire marshals do that too. But instead of car oil, these fire pros keep tabs on safety standards to prevent a fire from starting.

Michael Skaza is an assistant state fire marshal in Rutland, Vt. He's been preventing fires in his state for seven years. Part of his job is to stick his nose in other people's business--for their own good.

Skaza inspects buildings to make sure they were constructed with fire safety in mind-materials, wiring, fire alarms, sprinkler systems, and emergency exits are all high on Skaza's list.

In addition to a sharp eye, fire marshals must have great English and science skills. "When I was in school, I often wondered, when will I ever use this stuff?" Skaza says. "Believe me, I use things I learned [back] then every day at my job." Fire marshals write many reports and must understand scientific and technical subjects such as chemistry and electricity.

Part Firefighter, Part Detective
Dallas Fire Department arson and fire investigator Debra Mullins doesn't put out fires. She looks for their cause. Mullins's job combines firefighting and detective work. She has the badges to prove it: Mullins is both a firefighter and a police officer.

She sifts through evidence to determine where a blaze started and whether it was an accident. For example, she examines the color of the flames and smoke and the burn pattern caused by the fire. She looks for the place where the fire started, called the

point of origin, which can help her determine whether a fire was accidental--caused by faulty wiring, for example--or deliberately set. If so, she's found the scene of a crime: arson.

Mullins's K-9 partner, Ashly, is trained to sniff out evidence. For example, Ashly has a nose for accelarants--the flammable liquids used to start or feed a fire. Mullins says the dog helps in many other ways too. When Ashly sniffed through the aftermath of her first apartment fire, she alerted officers to a refrigerator. The officers thought Ashly was interested in the chicken stored there, but when the canine insisted they take a closer look, they found that it was where the fire began.

Next, Ashly took off upstairs. "When we arrived at the top of the stairs, Ashly was nudging a kitten out of the closet," Mullins says. The family thought the kitten had died in the fire, but it was only hiding.

Firefighting requires smarts, physical strength, and technical skill. In addition to the basic tools of the trade--shovels, rakes, and hoes--firefighters must also handle air tanks, chain saws, and heavy hoses with high water pressure. In some cases, they operate fire trucks or bulldozers.

This is one tough trade, but the rewards--saving lives and property--make the effort worth it.

Do You Have What It Takes?
The standard and agility tests for firefighters assess upper-body strength and stamina. Here are a few examples of what aspiring firefighters must be able to do:

* drag a 165-pound dummy 35 feet to 125 feet

* wear about 50 pounds' worth of gear while carrying another 50 to 100 pounds of gear

* crawl through a maze with low visibility

* climb stairs while wearing weighted vests

* drag 50-pound hoses and connect to a hydrant

* carry chain saws or other power tools for about 75 feet

* swing a 10-pound sledgehammer to simulate forcible entry

Women's Work
Typically people think only little boys dream of becoming firefighters. Although women currently make up a small fraction of the total number of firefighters in the United States, females are making gains. Two decades ago, only about 1 percent of all firefighters were women. Today, fire departments in some of the nation's largest cities count women as 10 percent or more of their workforce.

Because the job is physically demanding, candidates have to pass strength and agility tests. In the past, female candidates were often disqualified because women generally have less upper-body strength than men. Now one of the testing methods has changed. Instead of carrying an unconscious person from a burning building, applicants now duck under the smoke and drag the person out. That's how firefighters really work, so the new method is a better way of testing their skills.

By: Moore, Carole, Career World, Oct2006

Great Horned Owls

THE GREAT horned owl symbolizes wisdom from mythology to cartoons, but it's better described as a stealth-bombing predator with wideranging tastes. "Great horned owis will eat just about anything," says Carin Avila, education coordinator for the Rocky Mountain Raptor Program. Also called a tiger owl, it feeds on rodents, rabbits, snakes, red-tailed hawks, opossums, bats, skunks (because it can't smell well), and even other owls. When food is abundant, it consumes only the choicest parts of its prey-usually the head.

This airborne killer, largest of the North American owls, is found throughout most of the continent and thrives in a variety of habitats: forest, desert, and tundra, as well as suburban subdivisions, city parks, and golf courses. Colorado. Kansas, and Nebraska have the highest density of great horned owls in the United States. Instead of migrating, these owls tend to stick to a small home range (usually several square miles) if the hunting is good.

The great horned owl is a vocal species, so your ears are the best tools to find them. During the courtship season in December and January, you can hear male owls signaling to females at night with four to five deep hoots. Interested females respond with a higher-pitched, two-syllable hoot.

Great horned owls aren't fussy about their homes or roosting sites. They prefer abandoned crow or hawk nests, but will also forcibly evict occupants When hiking in woods bordered by meadows and grassland, look for messy stick bundles high in the crowns of old frees or large hollow openings in trunks.

While hearing owls is easy, seeing them is tough. Camouflaged with gray, white, and brown feathers, they often perch at the edges of open fields, where at dusk and dawn they watch and listen for their next meal. Their roosting trees are often surrounded by neatly packed "pellets" containing the regurgitated bones, feathers, and fur of prey.

3 OWL HOTSPOTS BARR LAKE STATE PARK, CO
Great horned owls and 300 other bird species call this Denver refuge home. Circle the lake on an 8.8-mile trait that crosses cottonwood groves and prairies. Observation stations mark prime viewing spots, and rangers offer guided walks. (303) 659-6005; http://parks.state.co.us

CHEROKEE NAT'L FOREST, TN
Open meadows finged by trees are great places to watch owls hunt. Find dozens of these grassy bald spots along the 5.4-mile section of Tennessee's AT from Indian Grave Gap to UnaKa Mountain — including Beauty Spot Gap. (423) 476-9700; http://fs.fed.us/r8/cherokee

LOLO NATIONAL FOREST, MT
Prowl for owls on the Bitterroot River's Maclay Rat Interpretative Trail. The 1.8-mile hike winds through ponderosa pines, coltonwoods, and grassy fields that also hosl bald eagles, and red-tailed hawks. (406) 329-3814; http://missoulian.com/specials/hikebike

Leading-edge feathers on an owl's wings have a velvet fringe to decrease turbulence, allowing it to swoop in silently. Sunset and night are hunting hours, once an owl spots Stacks by gliding silently from its high perch.

An owl can turn its head 270 degrees — not a complete rotation, but close.

Hornlike feathered tufts on the head camouflage the bird by disguising its profile against foliage. Owls also utilize these tufts to signal one another.

A saucer-shaped facial structure tunnels sound directly to the ears, like a radar dish.

An owl seizes prey (Which can be twice or 3 times its own weight) with forward- and rearfacing talons that together like pincers. When it straightens its leg, a tendon relaxes and the talons unlock.

Asymmetrical ears, with one slightly higher than the other, help the owl pinpoint the location of a noise. Scientists have discovered that owls can catch prey entirely by sound.

Large, round, yellow eyes catch all available light at dusk and provide excellent binocular vision. "Owls have 2.5 limes better eyesight than humans." Avil a says.

When an owl is threatened, it increases its size threefold by puffing its chin feathers, flaring its wings, and expanding its chest.

Source: Backpacker

Facts and Fictions (Music)

Latin Grammy Misconceptions, Cleared Up At Last

With the Latin Grammy Award nominations comes the annual onslaught of commentary from those who think the nominations are too "safe," too "eclectic" or too whatever, because it's so much fun to disagree with what other people choose.

While it is tempting to launch my own little analysis, I would rather clear up some misconceptions that, judging from multiple conversations, people still have about the Latin Grammys. Read on to see how you do.

The Latin Grammy nominations are rigged. Fiction. No, these nominees don't just pop out of somebody's BlackBerry. All submissions are compiled and sent to all Latin Recording Academy members, who can pick their top five in the general field and nine other fields. Accounting firm Deloitte & Touche tallies and comes up with the top five in most categories, but some fields are sent to specific nomination committees for final review. The process mimics the Grammy Awards' procedure.

Not everyone who should be nominated is. Fact. But then again, who can account for individual taste? I would like to see my fave five up there, but since my vote is only one of 4,000, I have to lump it.

Labels and artists lobby for Latin Grammy votes. Fact. They most certainly do. As with politics, you need to create awareness in order for people to vote for you. What the Latin Recording Academy does not condone is lobbying prior to the nominations. Sending out e-mails or any missive asking for votes is a big no-no, and members are advised of the fact. Once the nominations are announced, however, labels and nominees actively engage in PR efforts to raise awareness to their material.

The Latin Grammys are too staid. Fact. When the big guys put out records, they tend to dominate the fray. In years past, it's been Juanes and Alejandro Sanz. This time, it's Shakira. In addition, this year's main nominees—Ricardo Montaner, Ricardo Arjona, Julieta Venegas and Shakira—reflect the market. They are all stalwarts of Latin pop with worldwide impact, not only in sales, but also in touring and imaging. Even the dominant rock nominee, Gustavo Cerati, is a two-decade veteran of the scene. Why, someone asked, are there no reggaetón contenders in the main categories? Perhaps because no reggaetón production was strong or compelling enough to compete there. That, at least, is my opinion, and voters seem to concur.

The Latin Grammys are too "out there." Fact. This has been a steady industry criticism for several years. Except that this year, the nominations swung in the opposite direction. There are few surprises in the current crop of nominees, save for the always delightful best new artist category, which includes such well-promoted acts as Calle 13 and Lena alongside more obscure acts like Pamela and Céu. The biggest surprise, in my mind, is Colombian Ines Gaviria, signed to indie Respek, with nominations in the pop and best new artist categories. Someone was obviously listening to her music.

There are too many categories. Fact. The field is starting to get diluted. When only 14 entries compete for five finalist slots, as happened this year with a few categories (best rock album among them), those nominees lose importance.

Univision artists dominate the Latin Grammys. Fiction. This is by far the silliest myth surrounding the Latin Grammys. Just look at the list of nominees and performers and count by label. There is no Univision conspiracy.

No one cares about the Latin Grammys. Fiction. Hey, I'm writing about them. And 9 million people watch them.

By: Cobo, Leila, Billboard, 10/14/2006

Faded Glory

The 1961 Panhard PL17 sedan featured several touches that amazed the press and trumped the competition. The problem for Panhard was that it did so in 1948. More than a decade later, the car's innovations were no longer compelling.

Though Daimler-Benz gets most of the ink, Paris-based Panhard et Levassor marketed the first production car to the public (using a Daimler engine) in 1891. The firm created the template for the modern automobile in 1892, when it built the first car with a front engine followed by a clutch and transmission driving the rear wheels.

Establishing a reputation for engineering excellence in the early part of the 1900s, Panhard served a select clientele. A Panhard roadster set a world speed record of 133 mph in 1934, and the company's mid-'30s Panoramique and Dynamic were considered benchmarks of haute design and innovation. But the Great Depression and World War II took their toll on the glory that was Panhard.

Following the war, the French government sought to encourage efficiency by making it easier for manufacturers of small, economical cars to obtain materials. Though it had previously catered to the wealthy, Panhard had an appropriate design in-house, thanks to the efforts of director Paul Panhard's engineer son, Jean.

The Dyna X emerged in 1946 and went on sale in 1947. The Dyna's body and high-revving 610-cc two-cylinder, air-cooled boxer engine were largely aluminum. With a four-speed transmission, front-wheel drive and a clever suspension, the combination resulted in a machine with greater comfort and performance than the Citroen 2CV or Renault 4CV. But Dyna's relative sophistication yielded a higher price and reliability issues. The car struggled for sales.

The Dyna X continued through 1953, with increases in engine size and power. For 1954, the body was restyled in a sleeker, more modern form and the model got a new name, Dyna Z.

You either loved or hated the Z's looks. Still, sales took off, and more than 120,000 units were built. Increasingly, less expensive steel was used, replacing the car's aluminum almost entirely by 1957. The two-cylinder grew to 851 ccs in 1959, putting out 42 hp in standard trim and 50 hp in the sporty Tigre model. 1959 also saw the final iteration of the basic Dyna design with the PL17.

Panhard wanted a completely new model. Again, financial constraints meant little change. A facelift elongated the shape, a visual trick that makes Dale Martin's 1961 PL17 appear greater than its 180 inches. The Midland, Michigan, collector first saw the car on eBay, and when it didn't sell, he struck a deal with its Florida owner.

Martin restored the car using parts from two other PL17s. One donated its 851-cc twin, an engine whose four-stroke sound and power surprise the driver. "It's quite pleasant," Martin says. "I've had it to 82 mph, and it would still go faster. It's amazing it pulls along as well as it does."

Such speed from 851 cubic centimeters is impressive even considering the low, 1800-pound curb weight. Martin's Luxe model has the 50-hp Tigre engine. Its fiscal horsepower (5CV) partly explains the PL17 moniker that derives from 5CV plus two other figures: six passengers and six liters of fuel per 100 kilometers. The Panhard's unconventional suspension (upper/lower transverse-leaf front, torsion-bar/trailing-arm rear), front-wheel drive and aluminum drum brakes with outboard cooling fins allow for spirited driving but don't detract from the car's sedan mission.

Whether hauling people or cargo, the PL17 could deliver with comfortable benches. Its idiosyncratic control layout centers on a steering column mounting everything from an elliptical speedometer and accessory rockers to the gearshift, ignition and a battery isolator switch. The handsome padded black dash and short hood are easy to see over.

By the early '60s, Citroen had acquired a major stake in Panhard and then allowed the company to wither. The PL17 sold well (130,000 total sales) until it was pulled in 1965, leaving Panhard with only one model, the newly developed 24 coupe.

By: Tegler, Eric, AutoWeek, 10/9/2006

Paper Recycling

COST CUTTER: Higher grades of recycled pulp require more reprocessing steps, progressively raising their cost to that of virgin pulp produced from trees, in general, cereal and shoe-box cardboard pressed from recycled material is significantly cheaper than a similar product made from new fiber, says Richard A. Venditti of North Carolina State University. Corrugated boxes and newsprint cost somewhat less. There are no real savings for office paper.

RESIDENTS RULE: Some 86 percent of U.S. residents have access to curbside or drop-off recycling, according to the American Forest and Paper Association. Participation is fairly high but could still improve. Schools are less likely to recycle; businesses even less so. Greater compliance would help collectors make money, in part because fast-growing countries such as China want to buy more wastepaper as an inexpensive raw material.

SEE IT, SORT IT: Sensors in the first automated sorting machines identify primarily the color of paper passing on a conveyor, allowing them to separate, say, brown bags from copier paper. Other sensors being perfected at companies such as MSS, Inc., in Nashville, Tenn., and in university projects funded by the Department of Energy can distinguish between the black and white of office documents and that of newsprint as well as differences in gloss among consumer packaging.

By: Fischetti, Mark, Scientific American

World Champ and Eagle Scout Jason Latimer Turns You Into Magician

Blue smoke swirls around Eagle Scout Jason Latimer as he holds up a card. Poof! It's gone. Whoosh! It reappears. Jason taps one card that becomes two…three…four. He links his arms, and cards start pouring out of both hands.

The audience claps wildly. And that's just one of his easy tricks.

"I was raised by a pack of wild magicians," Jason says, laughing. Well, maybe not. Actually this 24-year-old learned his first magic trick - how to separate black from red playing cards - on a cruise ship. He was 9 years old and bugged the ship's magician to teach him something, anything.

After that Jason took classes, read books and watched videos. There was no stopping him. Now Jason is a world champion, touring the world and wowing crowds with his amazing acts of prestidigitation (that's magician talk for magic tricks).

Practice, Practice, Practice
There's no big trick to becoming a great magician.

"You don't have to be double-jointed, though it helps to have some dexterity," Jason says as he pulls two giant steel hoops out of thin air. "The real trick is practice. When you've finished practicing, practice some more."

All that practice helped Jason become only the third American to win the World Championship of Magic. That, and his college education, helps him create his own tricks.

"There's a lot of physics and matt behind the magic," says Jason, who designs all his own tricks and props "You start with a goat -- like doing the famous cups and balls trick, only with clear glasses -- and work backward. If you can think it, you can draw it. If you can draw it, you can make it," he says.

Success!
Jason's ability to "reverse engineer" resulted in his invention, the Latimer Cups. "It's really a large twist on an old trick," be says as he appears to instantly move small yellow balls from one clear glass to another, One second each cup covers a ball, the next all three balls are under a single cup.

How did he do that?

He'll never tell. "It took me two years to perfect that trick," he says. But it was worth it. Now most everyone in the magic world knows Jason for his crystal cups trick.

"In Scouting I learned to set a goal like making the next rank or getting the next badge. Then you dedicate yourself to achieving the goal. Never give up," he says. "It's the same with magic, except I use my imagination to set the goal."

THE TRICKS
Like any professional magician, Jason Latimer is very secretive about his tricks. He'll reveal only that he's working on a full-stage act and would like to teleport himself to another dimension and then back to the stage, sort of like a Stargate. Can he do it? As Jason likes to say with a big smile on his face, "In magic, anything is possible."

You can find the magic here, as Jason teaches you a few beginning tricks:

A KNOTTY SITUATION
Show a handkerchief to the audience. Tie a knot in it. When the knot is untied there's a coin inside!

The trick:
Hold a coin behind the handkerchief with your thumb. Do not let the audience see the coin.
After you show the handkerchief, hold it as shown here.
Twirl the handkerchief until it looks like a Scout neckerchief rolled.
Drop the coin down the tube formed by the handkerchief.
Tie a knot in the handkerchief.
Give it to an audience member to untie.
Surprise! There's the coin inside the knot.
THE UNBROKEN TOOTHPICK
A wooden toothpick is put under a piece of cloth. Someone in the audience breaks it, but you pull it out unbroken.

The trick:
Before…

Get a piece of cloth with a wide hem. Put another toothpick in the hem before you do the trick.

Spread the cloth on the table and place another toothpick in the center. Roll the cloth…

…and have someone in your audience feel the toothpick. Be sure he feels the toothpick in the center.

Have your audience member break the toothpick.

Say some magic words. Unroll the cloth to show the unbroken toothpick, which you have sneakily removed from the hem.

Hold onto the still-wrapped broken toothpick--don't let it fall out of the cloth.

IT'S A SNAP!
Hold a piece of cloth by one corner. Give it a snap. Presto! There's a knot!

The trick:
Before…

Tie a knot in one corner of the cloth.

Hold the cloth by this corner with the knot hidden in your hand.

Now do the trick:

Show the cloth to the audience. Put the other corner in your hand.

Give the cloth a snap…

…and release the corner with the knot.

HYPNOTIZED HANKY
This handkerchief stands by itself and mysteriously moves.

The trick:
Hold the handkerchief as in this photo. Pull it up about four inches through your left hand.

Using your right hand, wrap an imaginary hair around the handkerchief.

Secretly use your left thumb to move the handkerchief back and forth. Ta-da!

Catch Jason on the Web: www.jasonlatimer.com


By: Daily, Laura, Boys' Life, Sep2006

Heads or Tails?

Flipping a coin in the air, catching it, then determining whether it has come up heads or tails is a common way to start off a game or settle a question. Because you expect that heads is as likely to come up as tails, it sounds like a fair way to make a choice.

But coin tossing isn't really random at all. A mechanical gadget can flip a properly positioned coin so that the coin always lands showing the same face. Some magicians can make a coin come up heads on every toss-even when they don't use a two-headed coin.

A new mathematical analysis now suggests that, in a typical toss, a coin is more likely to land on the same face as it started out on (see Toss Out the Toss-Up: Bias in heads-or-tails).

Research interest in the fairness of coin tosses goes back many years. In 1985, physicists Valdimir Z. Vulovic and Richard E. Prange of the University of Maryland developed what they described as a physically realistic mathematical model of a coin toss.

The physicists argued that coin flipping obeys Newton's laws of motion. Each flip depends on the impulse given the coin by the thumb and the height above the floor from which the coin starts. If you could know the impulse given by the thumb in a particular case or had a stable mechanical flipper, you could then predict how the coin would fall. Any randomness would be not in the flipping itself but in how precisely the starting conditions are known.

In the physics of coin tossing, the most important parameters are the coin's upward velocity and its rate of spin. When the spin rate is low, the coin acts like a thrown pizza. It's unlikely to turn over, even if it travels a long distance.

A coin may also come down without flipping over if it doesn't go high enough-even when it's spinning very rapidly. There would be too little time for the coin to turn over.

By calculating how often a coin turns over for a certain spin and upward velocity, one can predict whether it will come up heads or tails. The outcomes for a range of spins and velocities can be plotted on a graph. Such a graph reveals that for the spins and velocities typically encountered in coin tosses, tiny changes in initial conditions make the difference between heads and tails.

Thus, coin tossing is almost random. A look at the spread in the way real people flip real coins indicates that heads and tails would each come up about half the time.

Around the same time, mathematician Joseph B. Keller of Stanford University performed a similar analysis. He assumed that a toss involves throwing a coin so that it spins perfectly around a horizontal axis through the coin's center.

Keller showed that, for large values of the initial velocity, the sets of initial velocity values that lead either to heads or to tails are of equal size for a fair coin. Thus, half of the initial conditions lead to heads and half to tails.

Both of these analyses, however, ignored the fact that a tossed coin may also wobble, spinning around a tilted axis and precessing like a top. Wobbling introduces additional subtleties that end up biasing the results of coin tosses.

The bias isn't large, but recent experiments show it's there. Because it's very difficult to toss a coin "perfectly," this bias comes into play for just about any given coin toss.

References:
1985. Taking no chances. Science News 127(April 6):217.

Ford, J. 1983. How random is a coin toss? Physics Today 36(April):40-47.

Keller, J.B. 1986. The probability of heads. American Mathematical Monthly 93(March):191-197.

Klarreich, E. 2004. Toss out the toss-up: Bias in heads-or-tails. Science News 165(Feb. 28):131-132. Available at http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20040228/fob2.asp.

Peterson, I. 2003. Flipping a coin. Muse 7(April):19. Available at http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/pages/puzzlezone/muse/muse0403.asp.

1997. A penny surprise. Science News Online (Dec. 13). Available at http://www.sciencenews.org/sn_arc97/12_13_97/mathland.htm.

1997. The Jungles of Randomness: A Mathematical Safari. New York: Wiley.

1990. Islands of Truth: A Mathematical Mystery Cruise. New York: W.H. Freeman.

Vulovic, V.Z., and R.E. Prange. 1986. Randomness of a true coin toss. Physical Review A 33(January):576-582. Abstract available at http://link.aps.org/abstract/PRA/v33/p576.

For a mathematical introduction to coin tossing, see http://mathworld.wolfram.com/CoinTossing.html

By: Peterson, Ivars, Math Trek

Sunday, October 22, 2006

Investigating the Nature of Urban Life

In Phoenix, a small army of researchers is conducting the nation's first long-term ecological study of a city — and making some surprising discoveries in the process

While most scientists prefer to study wildlife in remote, pristine places far from the influences of people, Paige Warren opts for working right in the heart of human habitat. "You never know what kinds of interesting encounters you'll have," says the biologist, who has been questioned by police officers, cornered by chatty homeowners and watched by wary coyotes while investigating bird behavior in the residential neighborhoods and parks of Phoenix, Arizona. "The challenges are definitely unique."

Warren is part of a small army of researchers who are trying to learn everything they can about the effects of development, climate change, landscaping and other factors on the wild creatures that live in the Valley of the Sun, as the greater Phoenix metropolitan area is known. Head-quartered at Arizona State University (ASU), the National Science Foundation-funded project they are participating in represents the country's first-ever long-term study of what the researchers call a "human-dominated ecosystem."

"When we began this work in 1997, we decided we need to use the same scientific procedures to answer questions about an urban area that we use to study a wilderness location," says ASU ecologist Nancy Grimm, codirector of the Central Arizona-Phoenix Long-Term Ecological Research Project. Nearly a decade later, Grimm and the 100 or so biologists, geographers, social scientists and technicians taking part in the 13-year study are certain they are looking at a distinct, fully functioning ecosystem that has received far too little attention from natural scientists in the past.

With nearly three-fourths of the U.S. population now living in the nation's burgeoning metropolitan areas, observes Grimm, "it's imperative that we figure out how to maintain and improve the ecological health of the places where most Americans make their homes." The researchers believe there is nothing contradictory about the terms "nature" and "city." In fact, they've discovered that the overall abundance of birds and other organisms is much greater in Phoenix than in the surrounding desert.

One reason: Residents have created a sort of artificial oasis in the nation's fifth largest city. The municipal district and suburbs are dotted with canals, ponds, swimming pools (at last count, more than a half million) and dozens of parks and greenways. The community of Scottsdale alone now has nearly 170 small lakes, compared to zero in the mid-1900s. Yet in many respects, this desert oasis is not a Garden of Eden. All of the impounded water attracts a lot of mosquitoes, creatures normally not common in such an arid climate, and much of the area is landscaped with exotic vegetation that is displacing native flora.

"Homeowners can buy a variety of drought-tolerant plants at local nurseries," says Grimm, "but our studies have found that if those plants are not native to this region, they're not going to support our declining pollinators." Providing habitat for native pollinators, she notes, is vital to ensuring biodiversity.

Curiously, the scientists have discovered that more species of native birds prefer to live and breed in the city's wealthy neighborhoods than in middle- and lower-income areas. Warren and fellow biologists Ann Kinzig and Chris Martin came to that conclusion after measuring the abundance and diversity of birds in 16 parks in different parts of Phoenix. They found that the upper-income neighborhoods have, on average, nearly twice as many species as the low-income areas. "You'd think that just the opposite should be the case because the parks in the lower-income communities have more mature trees," says Warren, who has found similar results in neighborhoods in Baltimore, Maryland, site of a second National Science Foundation long-term urban study.

In fact, the birds seem to be attracted by the overall quality of habitat in a neighborhood around a park, not by the park itself. Higher-income communities in Phoenix, notes the biologist, tend to have more cacti and other desert plants — and more plant diversity in general — than the other residential areas, which make them so appealing to the animals.

As might be expected, the researchers have found that bird diversity is low in the noisier parts of the city. To successfully stake out territories and attract mates in such environments, some species, such as the blue-throated hummingbird, simply sing louder — a reflexive response, like people raising their voices in noisy restaurants.

"We still have so much to learn about the abilities and habitat needs of the wild animals living in our midst," says Warren, who these days spends more of her time analyzing data in her office at the University of Massachusetts than collecting information in the field. "We need to understand how to live sustainably with wildlife in our cities," she adds. "Otherwise, we won't have diverse wildlife and our communities will be much less vital places to live in."

By: Wexler, Mark, National Wildlife, Oct/Nov2006

Did You Know?

By early October 1781, British general Charles Cornwallis ordered horses that were behind the lines of siege to be killed so that they would not starve to death.

American commander in chief George Washington refused to accept a salary during the war.

In an attempt to fool British general Henry Clinton, American general George Washington ordered his men to build big camps outside New York City, to make it appear as if the Continental Army were preparing to stay there.

The British did not evacuate New York City, their last position in the United States, until November 25, 1783 -- more than two years after Yorktown.

Sixteen-year-old John Quincy Adams, son of John Adams, Served as his father's secretary and helped prepare paperwork for the Treaty of Paris. Both father and son would later become presidents of the United States.

The loss at Yorktown, Virginia, was such a devastating blow for Great Britain because one-third of all its North American forces were Stationed there.

Source: Cobblestone, Oct2006

Scary Facts About 10 Big Stars

Some of today's hottest names have a few skeletons in the closet: Their movie role résumés include performances in scream-fest films

KATHERINE HEIGL: Long before her role as model-turned-doctor Izzie Stevens on Grey's Anatomy, Katie played Jade — a love-struck teen on the run — in 1998's Bride of Chucky. One benefit: She got a chance to get used to all that faux blood!

KEVIN BACON: Keep this in mind the next time you play the game Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon: One of his first roles was in the 1980 flick Friday the 13th. He appeared as a camp counselor named Jack, who was murdered in his bunk bed.

TOM HANKS: Tom was in He Knows You're Alone, a 1980 movie about a young bride stalked by a serial killer. Some retro trivia; The film's movie-theater murder was so genius, it was restaged in Scream 2.

JOHNNY DEPP: He played a guy named Glen in the iconic 1984 Wes Craven horror flick (Even with feathered hair he was gorgeous!) Three years later, Johnny landed his breakout role on 22 Jump Street.

MICHELLE WILLIAMS AND JOSH HARTNETT: In 1998, they costarred in Halloween H20. Michelle started on Dawson's Creek that same year, and in 2000, Josh gained fame in The Virgin Suicides.

MISCHA BARTON: This glamorous OC alum was the dead girl hiding under the bed in The Sixth Sense, circa 1999. She was only 13 at the time, just two years older than her seemingly much younger costar, Haley Joel Osment!

CHARLIZE THERON: Charlize went from an uncredited role of Young Woman in her first flick, Children of the Corn ill, to winning an Academy Award for her amazing performance in the 2003 movie Monster nine years later.

RENÉE ZELLWEGER AND MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY: These two blockbuster babes starred in 1994's Return of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, a flick about teens terrorized by a family of psychopaths.

Source: Cosmopolitan, Oct2006

Monday, October 16, 2006

Interesting Facts about Moon

ASTRONAUTS ARE HEADING BACK TO EARTH'S NEAREST NEIGHBOR-EVENTUALLY, TO STAY

On July 21, 1969, millions of television viewers around the world tuned in to the news to watch an amazing event. For the first time ever, people were walking on the moon!

The now-famous moon walkers were American astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong. For two hours, the astronauts kicked up dust and left long-lasting footprints in the moon's powdery gray soil. The experience caused Armstrong to utter some unforgettable words: "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."

Moon Mission
Since Aldrin and Armstrong's first moon walk, 10 more people have set foot on the gray globe's chalky surface. But no one has walked on the moon for more than 34 years. Now, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is planning another giant leap for mankind. It's gearing up to send astronauts back to the moon — eventually, to stay!

Why send astronauts back? Because our nearest neighbor in space is a great place to learn more about Earth and the rest of the universe. It could also serve as a launching pad for destinations farther than people have ever traveled.

Old Pals

The moon is much more than a chunk of lifeless rock orbiting Earth. "It's actually a piece of Earth itself," says Tony Colaprete, a scientist who works at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California.

Scientists believe that 4 billion years ago, a small planet the size of Mars smashed into Earth. The crash was so powerful that it chipped off a gigantic chunk of our planet and kicked it into space. That chunk is now the moon.

That's one reason to make a return trip, says Colaprete. Since the moon is made of ancient Earth, some scientists think that studying it up close will tell us what our home planet was like long ago.

The moon could also give scientists a better look at what the rest of our universe is like. Earth's atmosphere and city lights can alter the images that scientists see in telescopes. But the moon doesn't have an atmosphere. Nor does it have any of Earth's big city lights. So by setting up telescopes there, researchers could get a clearer view of space.

Home Base
Eventually, the moon could also act as a training camp for trips to planets. The 384,400-kilometer (238,855-mile) trip to the moon takes a spacecraft only two and a half days. Mars, though, is much farther. Its closest distance from Earth has measured 54,500,000 kilometers (33,864,730miles). So a trek to Mars could take almost nine months. "That lengthy time makes it much more difficult to go back if something goes wrong or there's something that we forgot," explains scientist Chris McKay, who works at NASA's Ames Research Center.

After it sends four astronauts to the moon for a brief period in 2018, NASA will have other astronauts visit it for longer stretches of time.

Eventually, colonies of astronauts could live there for six months.

But the moon has no food or oxygen, a gas that humans must breathe to stay alive. So how can astronauts remain there for such long periods? They'll use the same trick that extreme mountaineers use to survive in the wilderness, says McKay. On their first few trips, astronauts will take some supplies, such as oxygen packs and tasty meals, with them in separate cargo vehicles. But eventually, they plan to mine some supplies from the moon's surface itself. Some researchers believe that there's oxygen buried in the moon's dirt, and water hidden in its deep craters.

Figuring out how to live on the moon could teach scientists the skills needed to keep exploring the rest of the universe. Says McKay: "A moon base is the first step to an essentially endless voyage into space."

Words to Know

Moon — a sphere that circles around a planet. Some moons are rocky, while others are mostly ice.

Orbit — to circle around an object

Atmosphere — the layers of gas that surround a planet

Oxygen — a colorless, odorless gas that is found in the Earth's atmosphere

Crater — a large hole formed by the impact of a space rock

SPACECRAFT NAME AREA OF TOUCHDOWN
1 APOLLO 11 SEA OF TRANQUILITY
2 APOLLO 12 OCEAN OF STORMS
3 APOLLO 14 FREA MAURO FORMATION
4 APOLLO 15 HADLEY-APENNINE
5 APOLLO 16 PLAIN OF DESCARTES
6 APOLLO 17 TAURUS-LITTROW

By: Brownlee, Christy, Scholastic SuperScience, Sep2006

Sunday, October 15, 2006

Math's Great Uniter

TERRY TAO, 31: He searches the mathematical universe for his next big trick

THE CODE BREAKERS who are about to employ a powerful new method to piece together broken messages have UCLA day care to thank. While waiting to pick up their kids, Terry Tao, a UCLA mathematician, and Emmanuel Candes, a mathematician from the nearby California Institute of Technology, wondered if it was possible to reconstruct a garbled message even if you intercepted only bits and pieces of it. Using ideas from fields as diverse as geometry, statistics and calculus, they not only proved it possible (in special cases), they showed how to do it. Their technique is being adopted by anyone trying to clean up a jumbled signal, be they CIA agents tapping phone lines or doctors restoring spotty brain scans.

The work is quintessential Tao: a breakthrough in a new field that requires a mastery of techniques from across the mathematical spectrum. It's this kind of ingenuity that won Tao this year's Fields Medal (announced as this issue went to press), the Nobel Prize equivalent in mathematics. He's the youngest person to receive the Fields since 1986, which was two years before the then-13-year-old Tao became the youngest person ever to win the International Math Olympiad. In the decade since he earned his Ph.D. from Princeton University at age 21, "he's really taken the math world by storm," says Tony Chan, the dean of physical sciences at UCLA. Tao has made major discoveries in at least five branches of mathematics, and, Chan says, "the senior people in these fields are scratching their heads in awe."

Tao's most famous result brought an end to a mathematical search that had lasted for centuries [see box, left], in which he used techniques from several fields to uncover an astonishing pattern among primes. But to Tao, the traditional boundaries between different mathematical fields don't seem to exist. "They're interconnected in some way," agrees John Garnett, his colleague at UCLA. "You have to be Terry Tao to see all this, but they are."

TAO'S INFINITE PRIMES
Terry Tao and Ben Green at the University of Bristol in England found a surprising pattern among prime numbers. Here's the condensed version of their 35-page proof.

FIRST, FIND A PRIME
A prime is a number divisible only by 1 and itself, such as 3, 11 and 421.

THEN, CREATE A PRIME ARITHMETIC PROGRESSION (PAP)
That's a sequence of prime numbers in which each number is separated from the next by the same difference. The PAP "5, 11, 17, 23" is four numbers long, and each number differs from the next by six.

WHAT DID TAO AND GREEN PROVE?
There are infinitely many PAPs of every length. So "5, 11, 17, 23" is just one of an infinite number of PAPs with four numbers in it. There's also an infinite number of progressions that are five, 10 or even 1,936,046 numbers long.

By: Aaronson, Lauren, Popular Science, Oct2006

Seeker, Distant Earths

SARA SEAGER, 35: Her simulations tell astronomers what fingerprints life may leave on other planets

IN THE PAST DECADE, astronomers have found 200 new planets orbiting distant stars, and not one of them looks like Earth. Sara Seager, an astronomer at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, thinks that's set to change. Having devised a way to figure out what kind of atmosphere, if any, a far-off planet has, she's trying to prove that planets like our own dot the Milky Way.

Since information about what distant planets are made of is scarce, Seager created her early models of extrasolar planets by considering what Earth must look like from thousands of lightyears away. She then altered her "Earth" in a thousand different ways-doubling its size, or adding strange gases to the atmosphere-and recalculated its appearance each time. Her library of worlds not only reveals what newly discovered planets might be made of, it also gives astronomers ideas for what to look for. "She is predicting things for which we have little or no experimental data," says San Francisco State University astronomer Debra Fischer, a member of the renowned team credited with discovering most of the known planets outside our solar system. "And those predictions drive all our observations."

In fact, Seager's models helped in finding the first atmosphere around a distant planet. In 1999, just one month after Seager earned her Ph.D. from Harvard University, astronomers discovered a planet that passes in front of its parent star during every orbit as seen from Earth, blocking a small but detectable amount of starlight. Seager plugged what was known about the planet into her models and predicted that this Jupiter-like "gas giant" would have sodium and potassium in its atmosphere. Two years later, astronomers searched for and found these chemical "signatures."

Seager has since used her technique to chart the atmospheres around 12 worlds, and now she's looking for chemical signatures like ozone, which could indicate Earth-like conditions and maybe even extraterrestrial life. She's cataloguing every potential chemical that might be released by alien life and modeling what biosignatures each compound might leave in a planet's atmosphere. That way, when a telescope brings back those first signs of a living world, we'll recognize it for what it is: another Earth.

By: Pacella, Rena Marie, Popular Science, Oct2006

Hydrogen Nano-Architect

OMAR YAGHI, 41: He's building the minuscule scaffolds that could one day hold the hydrogen in your gas tank

OMAR YAGHI walks out of his chemistry lab at the University of California at Los Angeles, closes the door, and looks over his shoulder. "I've had a terrible secret for most of my career," he says with a sly grin. "I'm afraid of chemicals."

It's an unlikely phobia for a chemist whose research papers rank among the most influential in his field. But Yaghi chose his field for its intellectual puzzles, not its explosive ingredients. Fill a jug with one of the materials he's invented (it looks like baby powder), and, as paradoxical as it seems, it will hold more natural gas than an empty room. Many chemists believe that Yaghi's creations, if suitably tailored to store hydrogen, could lead to the first workable fuel tank for a hydrogen car.

If you zoomed in a billion times, his substances would look like enormous scaffolds. Materials scientists had seen similar frameworks before, but they couldn't custom-build them for specific purposes. "It was a dream" to engineer these frameworks to chemists' specs, says University of South Florida professor Mike Zaworotko. "Yaghi was the person who turned it into reality."

To build the frameworks, Yaghi used tiny metal supports, which, because they form stable joints, allowed him to create nearly any pattern. His tight-knit honeycombs, for instance, are great at storing gases-as gas molecules stick to the crossbeams, they draw close together, becoming compressed without high pressures or low temperatures.

"We [humans] like to control our surroundings," Yaghi says. "I'm no exception." Even as a child in Jordan, Yaghi wanted to manage his life on his own; he felt offended whenever his parents checked up on him by asking for his report card. He moved to the U.S. to start college at age 16 and has organized his days around science ever since. "I find that shaving in the morning, taking a shower, is an impediment to me getting to the lab," he admits.

Within the next few years, Yaghi's devotion could pay off in real-world applications such as filters that capture the carbon-dioxide emissions from smokestacks. But to Yaghi, such uses are a secondary concern. "I didn't start out to solve some big societal problem," he says. Rather, he's always simply chased the unknown. "If you do that honestly, then usefulness to society will come."

By: Aaronson, Lauren, Popular Science, Oct2006

Girodet France's Romantic Rebel

"As he veered away from orthodox classicism, [the artist] made his subjects increasingly evocative and dreamlike, sometimes adding a strange, erotic charge."

ANNE-LOUIS GIRODET de Roussy-Trioson, or Girodet as he commonly is referred to, was much admired in his own time, although he is not especially well known to the American public. Girodet (1767-1824) was a painter of genius, but also a rebel bent on confounding expectations. His literary sophistication, preference for the bizarre, and ambiguous eroticism, as well as the mysteries surrounding his life and relations, have remained a source of fascination and bewilderment. Girodet created a painting style very much his own--combining intellectual refinement and sensuality.

Girodet's career was shaped profoundly by the dramatic social and political upheaval brought about by the French Revolution, which ignited in 1789. A rebellious pupil of Jacques-Louis David during the 1780s, Girodet early on developed his own idiosyncratic style. David's Neoclassicism, the prevalent artistic movement of this period, was intended--in its antique subjects and rigid style--to invoke the stoic ideals of Republican or Imperial Rome. The young Girodet approached such subjects and worked in this manner on propagandistic history paintings.

After a period of study and practice in Rome, he broke free of his teacher's influence, creating highly imaginative compositions that he hoped would surpass David in their intensity of artistic expression. He asserted his independence in an austere "Pieà" (1790), painted from a provincial monastery. His final break with David, however, manifested itself in the mythological "The Sleep of Endymion" (1791), exhibited to great acclaim at the Paris Salon in 1793.

Girodet continued to eschew the rationalism of the Neoclassical style in which he was trained in favor of a more imaginative mode, ranging from the spectral vision of "Ossian Receiving the Ghosts of the French Heroes" (1801), commissioned for Napoleon's retreat at Malmaison, to the apocalyptic "Scene from a Deluge" (1806). This monumental canvas, depicting three generations of a family balanced precariously over floodwaters, secured Girodet's ultimate triumph over David--in 1810, it was named the best history painting of the decade over David's "Intervention of the Sabine Women" (1799).

Like many of David's students, Girodet commemorated Napoleon's regime in portraits as well as history paintings. The exhibition includes one of the paintings of Napoleon in imperial costume as well as drawings and an oil sketch related to "The Revolt of Cairo" (1810). In illustrating this episode from Napoleon's Egyptian campaign, Girodet gives free reign to the exoticism and violence of the emerging Romantic fascination with Orientalism.

As he veered away from orthodox classicism, Girodet made his subjects increasingly evocative and dreamlike, sometimes adding a strange, erotic charge. He began exploring themes of a more Romantic nature, taking up literary subjects that involved the irrational and the exotic. He executed pictures representing the legends of Ossian (a fanciful Nordic myth contrived by contemporary writer James MacPherson) and the tragic story of the American Indian woman Atala, based on the eponymous novel by his friend, Romantic writer François-René Chateaubriand.

The exhibition features a broad range of Girodet's creations, bringing together approximately 110 paintings and works on paper, including portraits of the leading figures of his time, as well as more intimate portrayals of his family members. The artist's oriental fantasies, replete with exotic costumes and dynamic imagery, culminated in his spectacular "The Revolt of Cairo," a depiction of a Mameluke rebellion during Napoleon's Egyptian campaign in 1798. Two related works are featured to evoke this major work: a beautiful sketch for "The Revolt of Cairo," indicative of Girodet's fascination with the fervor of the Muslim insurrection, and a "Portrait of Katchef Dahouth, a Christian Mameluke." Girodet's admiration for the courage and passion of the Egyptian Mamelukes caused him to portray them with an impassioned dynamism that strongly would influence Eugène Delacroix and other French Romantic artists.

Also highlighted in the exhibition are Girodet's lesser-known--but immense--talents as a draftsman. A wide selection of his preparatory drawings for paintings and his highly finished sheets for book illustrations--such as Virgil's Aeneid and Jean Racine's Phaedre--are featured.

"Girodet: Romantic Rebel" will be on view at Canada's Montreal Museum of Fine Art, Oct. 12-Jan. 21, 2007.

Source: USA Today Magazine, Sep2006

Spare No Expense

If cost is no issue and you're looking for an extraordinary effect, check out liquid nitrogen foggers.

Even by casino standards, the Crown Casino in Melbourne, Australia, is pretty spectacular. With two state-of-the-art theatrical venues, over 30 bars and restaurants and, of course, the obligatory forest of gaming tables and slot machines, the Crown is a wildly popular destination for thrillseekers of every stripe. If you are a theatrical technophile, however, the real show is in the atrium, where a massive fountain, designed by Wet Design of Sun Valley, California, spills out an hourly display of bubbly, boiling whitewater. What sets this fountain apart from other dancing water spectacles is two Dry Fogger Mammoth liquid nitrogen foggers buried in the car park below, provided by one of the more interesting companies you are likely to encounter, the appropriately named Interesting Products of Chicago.

"Liquid nitrogen effects are not just like water, they are water," says Larry Schoeneman, president of Interesting Products (www.interestingproducts.com). "The great thing is, they don't leave any moisture behind." Once the moisture in the fog is no longer exposed to the cooling effect of the liquid nitrogen, it quickly gets reabsorbed by the air and disappears. Anyone familiar with the trademark puddle left behind by ordinary dry-ice foggers will appreciate being able to fill a stage with low lying fog without creating slip hazards for performers. The European tour of Riverdance, for example, carried two Dry Fogger Mammoths to avoid upending any of those reeling feet.

In addition to leaving no moisture behind, thus creating no safety hazards or water damage, liquid nitrogen (generally known by the moniker "LN2") has two other main advantages over more traditional dry-ice or glycol-based fog machines: the fog sits close to the ground and dissipates quickly, making it easier to control; as well as being odorless, nontoxic and non-staining.

Liquid nitrogen systems fall into two basic categories. In the first type of system, the atmospheric effect is created inside a closed tank. The resulting fog is then pumped out to where it is needed. This creates a rolling, billowing fog that hugs the ground. (If you have ever seen a film where the lead character appears in heaven, wading through a waist-high cloud of angelic fog, you were probably looking at an LN2 effect.) While the machine itself creates a low level of noise, it can be placed away from the stage, making this effect essentially silent.

The second kind of effect, the so-called "burst" effect, is created in the open air, where a nozzle sprays out LN2 through the air, producing a white blast of fog that can be directed straight up, like a geyser. This type of effect creates a rather loud hissing sound, restricting it to environments with a high noise level, like rock concerts or theme park shows. Burst effects are more dependent on the local humidity and work best in areas that are hot and humid.

Liquid nitrogen effects work by creating a miniature weather system and manipulating temperature, humidity and something known as the dew point. The atmosphere's ability to hold humidity increases with temperature. When the atmosphere reaches total saturation (100% humidity) at a particular temperature, it has reached the "dew point." Any rapid increase in water being forced into the air or decrease in temperature will force the extra water to be condensed into tiny droplets of water--or fog. When the temperature of a water-saturated atmosphere drops, a fog of water vapor appears. San Francisco's trademark fog banks are created when warm air comes into contact with cold water welling up from the ocean depths just outside the Golden Gate Bridge. As the air cools, the extra humidity has nowhere to go and out come those famous Sam Spade fog banks.

Likewise, when a burst of very cold liquid nitrogen is fired into warm, humid air, whether inside a contained tank or out in the open, it suddenly and drastically chills the air, dropping it below dew point, releasing the water and creating a billowing fog. The effect is more pronounced if the air is preheated and preloaded with water, which is why most liquid nitrogen effect machines contain large boilers, which produce steam. By firing the nitrogen into the steam, the dew point changes drastically and instantly. Result: a fog bank worthy of George Sterling's "cool, grey city of love."

All this romantic fogmaking doesn't come easy, or cheap. Liquid nitrogen is difficult to handle because of its extremely low temperature (about 320 degrees below zero Fahrenheit) and must be delivered in specially designed 180-liter or 240-liter vacuum bottles, known as "dewars." For large-scale, permanent applications, bulk storage tanks are installed and refilled from insulated tank trucks. Nitrogen itself is not toxic--70 percent of our atmosphere is made of it--but it can cause problems in high concentrations, because it dilutes the oxygen that we need to survive. Care must be taken when designing LN2 effects that the fog is not allowed to pool in a low-lying area, such as a pit, where it would lower the oxygen concentration and make it difficult for a performer to breathe. In these extreme situations, oxygen deprivation could lead to lightheadedness or loss of consciousness. While this situation is extreme and avoidable, care must be taken when designing the effect. Many large-scale LN2 systems contain oxygen-monitoring sensors to alert technicians if the percentage of breathable oxygen dips below the OSHA requirement of 19.5 percent.

So, how much does all this cost? It is difficult to put a price tag on LN2 systems because they are so often custom built, but be prepared for that second mortgage. The Dry Fogger Mammoth from Interesting Products (currently seen in Cirque du Soleil's KÀ at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas or La Nouba in Orlando) lists at around $32,000, which doesn't include the facility plumbing or storage tank, let alone the liquid nitrogen itself, which pumps through the machine at two gallons a minute. Of course, for some people, the cost is worth it: KÀ has four of them.

Liquid nitrogen sits atop the list of low-lying fog effects in scale, beauty, safety and, unfortunately, cost. But if you've got that rich uncle, and you want the queen of fog effects, there is nothing like it.

By: Campbell, Drew, Stage Directions, Sep2006

Entertain the Queen

"Here the Milky Way is so rich that an observer hardly needs any guidance; he is sure to stumble upon interesting sights for himself." This is how Garrett Serviss describes the binocular view of Cassiopeia the Queen in his Astronomy with an Opera Glass (1888). Serviss' charming book introduced the idea that people could use binoculars to view the heavens. Of course, binoculars made back then don't compare to the quality found in even the least expensive binoculars today. But his equipment's low quality didn't deter Serviss from viewing the binocular universe from his home in Brooklyn, New York.

One of Cassiopeia's sights Serviss mentioned lies near the star Zeta (ζ) Cassiopeiae. You'll find Zeta just south of Schedar (Alpha [α] Cassiopeiae), which marks the lower-right corner of the Queen's "W" pattern. Through binoculars, 4th-magnitude Zeta's distinct aquamarine hue contrasts nicely against Schedar's orangish tint.

Zeta lies at the end of a semicircular asterism of seven fainter stars that Serviss described as an "array of stars … in a broken half-circle, which may suggest the notion of a crown." Together, they resemble a backward 3 or a miniature Corona Borealis. Because older depictions of the constellation show Zeta representing the Queen's head, "Cassiopeia's crown" seems an appropriate name for this little asterism.

Let's go deeper into the constellation by following the zigzag path along the Cassiopeia five-star "W" to Ruchbah (Delta [δ] Cassiopeiae), at its lower-left corner. Aim half a binocular field to the southwest of Ruchbah toward 5th-magnitude Phi (φ) Cassiopeiae. You'll see a second fainter star just to Phi's southwest as well as a tiny smear of dim starlight to the north. Together, they form the Owl Cluster, NGC 457. The two brightest stars mark the owl's eyes, while the fainter suns outline its body and outstretched wings. Some observers imagine a dragonfly here, while others see the movie character ET. Although most binoculars reveal the cluster, you'll probably need at least 15x to see any hint of these heavenly creatures.

Most studies indicate Phi doesn't actually belong to NGC 457, but, instead, just happens to fall along the same line of sight. Strangely enough, Phi appears to move through space in the same direction as the cluster. This usually indicates a physical association. If that's so, then at the duster's distance of 9,000 light-years, Phi would have to be an incredible 250,000 times more luminous than our Sun.

Next, let's stop by open cluster M103, located to the other side of Ruchbah. My 10x50s show this group as a small triangular patch of starlight nestled in a pretty Milky Way field. I can make out four or five separate stars here. The rest of its 170 members pool their faint light to create what looks like a tiny arrowhead. Others think M103 resembles a handheld fan.

Scan the area around M103, and you will notice the hazy glow of NGC 663 a little east of the halfway point between Ruchbah and the star Segin (Epsilon [ε] Cassiopeiae). In fact, you may see it before you even notice M103. NGC 663 looks like an unresolved blur of light through my 10x50s, while my 16x70s add a few feeble points of light.

Next month, we'll take the sky's camel for a ride down a celestial cascade. Till then, remember, two eyes are better than one!

By: Harrington, Phil, Astronomy

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Chuck Norris: This good guy always wins

For a skinny kid growing up on a sleepy college campus in the suburbs of Kampala, Uganda, in East Africa, Chuck Norris was the ultimate movie hero for one reason -- he could beat any bad guy, and he didn't need a gun to do it.

It was the late 1980s and early 1990s, and for most teenage boys in my neighborhood, martial arts action stars and larger-than-life characters who could take on any villain were in vogue.

And Norris, a former six-time karate world champion, simply became The Man.

Forget Walker, Texas Ranger. I'm talking about the Norris of Code of Silence (1985), Good Guys Wear Black (1978), An Eye for an Eye (1981), Invasion U.S.A. (1985), The Delta Force (1986), Delta Force 2 (1990), Missing in Action (1984), Missing in Action 2 (1985), Braddock: Missing in Action III (1988).

Sure, we also had Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jean-Claude Van Damme, and later Bruce Willis, but none of them came close to Norris.

For one thing, he was not bombastic. He didn't have a massive chest or rely on oversized guns and unfamiliar accents. He was the lean and soft-spoken hero, who rarely delved into touchy-feely sentimentality but somehow always got the girl.

Nobody could take Norris in a one-on-one fight; even Bruce Lee had to go a few rounds before taking him down in Return of the Dragon (1972), but Lee was in a class of his own.

I remember one balmy Friday afternoon in 1989, in an incredibly crowded classroom at Buganda Road Primary School in the heart of Kampala when Norris -- the superhero -- came alive for a couple hundred 11-year-olds, including me.

My friends and I squeezed into the small classroom that had been converted into a rudimentary movie theater on Fridays. It had a 32-inch screen television with a shaky picture and even worse sound quality.

An Eye for an Eye, the first Norris movie I ever saw, was the featured film. The movie itself was nothing special, especially for a bunch of kids who knew little about American culture, much less the intricacies of being a San Francisco police officer framed in an undercover sting operation.

But we understood action, and who the good guy and the bad guys were. Norris was a good guy. I distinctly recall the scene in which he stole the show.

It was a one-on-one fight with a much bigger and stronger enemy. From our standpoint, Norris was clearly the underdog. He had suffered many injustices in the movie. Everybody was out to get him and so we rooted for him.

We feared Norris would lose the fight. He'd been slapped and kicked around, and even staggered to the ground a few times until one point when the bad guy charged at him for the last time. And we knew it. We could see the determination in his eyes.

And that is when he performed his classic roundhouse kicks. Swinging on one leg as his fulcrum, he leveled a couple of kicks, but the bad guy barely flinched.

The room, packed with little boys and girls squeezed on benches and standing on desks, grew louder with every kick.

The filmmaker must have known we were waiting for him to cut down the bad guy, because Norris sprang in the air and with three swift roundhouse kicks, smacked his nemesis in almost the same spot until the giant just tumbled to the ground.

You should have been there. It was sheer exhilaration. We jumped, hugged, screamed, broke desks and chairs -- all because of Norris.

I knew then that I wanted to be like Norris. And thus, a Walker, Texas Ranger fan was born, long before I knew what it meant to be a Texas Ranger. And now, thanks to Norris, I know that "when you're in Texas look behind you, 'cause that's where the Ranger's gonna be."

By: Rujumba, Karamagi, Blade, The (OH), Sep 06

Interesting Facts about Chuck Norris

Q&A

The action star and former Walker, Texas Ranger is now an online cult hero and founder of the World Combat League, a new fighting organization.

How does your professional fighting league work? It's six-person teams--five men, one woman. Each person fights a 3-min. round--3 minutes of full-throttle fighting. My mind was on a male league, but we got lots of e-mails from women who said, We want to fight! These women are tough. I wouldn't want to take them on.

So violent--like your movies. Why have my movies been so successful? People like action. But in my movies, violence is a last resort.

Does Hollywood take you seriously? No, but I didn't start acting expecting to be Laurence Olivier. I wanted to do films that were entertaining.

Walker obviously has to love Westerns. I grew up just with my mom raising me. John Wayne and Roy Rogers were sort of surrogate fathers to me. Westerns in those days were different. I haven't seen Brokeback Mountain. I'm not sure I will. I don't like way-out drama.

You're a rare show-biz Republican. If I found a Democrat I liked, I'd support him too. When President Bush was Governor of Texas, I felt he was a strong leader. And I felt he'd be a strong leader of the country. But I wouldn't want to be in his shoes for all the money in the world. A group in Texas tried to get me to run for Senator, but I've got more important things to do.

Like being an online cult hero. There are these weird but wildly popular sayings like "Chuck Norris can divide by zero." To say I'm surprised is an understatement. I take it as a compliment.

Do you even send e-mails? I told you, I'm from the Wild West. I write by hand.

By: Chu, Jeff, Time, 3/20/2006

Age of Dinosaurs

• The Age of Dinosaurs corresponds to the time that geologists call the Mesozoic Era, from about 248-65 million years ago (mya).

• The Mesozoic Era is divided into three shorter time spans: -- the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous Periods.

• In the Triassic Period, 248-208 mya, the dinosaurs began to evolve.

• During the Jurassic Period --about 208-144 mya--the dinosaurs reached their greatest size.

• The Cretaceous Period is when dinosaurs were at their most varied--about 144-65 mya.

• In the Triassic Period, all the continents were joined in one supercontinent--Pangaea.

• In the Jurassic Period, the supercontinent of Pangaea separated into two huge land-masses--Laurasia in the north and Gondwana in the south.

• In the Cretaceous Period, Laurasia and Gondwana split, and the continents as we know them began to form.

• In the Mesozoic Era, the major land-masses gradually moved across the globe in a process known as "continental drift."

• The joining and separating of the continents affected which kinds of dinosaurs lived where.

By: Parker, Steve, Dinosaurs

Legs and posture

• All dinosaurs had four limbs. Unlike certain other reptiles, such as snakes and slowworms, they did not lose their limbs through evolution.

• Some dinosaurs, such as massive, plant-eating sauropods like Janenschia, stood and walked on all four legs nearly all the time.

• The all-fours method of standing and walking is called "quadrupedal."

• Some dinosaurs, such as nimble, meat-eating dromaeosaurs like Deinonychus, stood and walked on their back limbs only. The front two limbs were used as arms.

• The back-limbs-only method of standing and walking is called "bipedal."

• Some dinosaurs, such as hadrosaurs like Edmontosaurus, could move on all four limbs or just on their back legs if they chose to.

• The two-or-four-legs method of standing and walking is called "bipedal/quadrupedal."

• Reptiles such as lizards and crocodiles have a sprawling posture, in which the upper legs join the body at the sides.

• Dinosaurs had an upright posture, with the legs directly below the body.

• The more efficient upright posture and gait may be one major reason why dinosaurs were so successful compared to other animals of the time.

By: Parker, Steve, Dinosaurs

Ancestors

• Experts have many opinions as to which group (or groups) of reptiles were the ancestors of the dinosaurs.

• The earliest dinosaurs appeared in the Middle Triassic Period, about 230-225 mya, so their ancestors must have been around before this.

• Very early dinosaurs walked and ran on their strong back limbs, so their ancestors were probably similar.

• The thecodonts or "socket-toothed" group of reptiles may have been the ancestors of the dinosaurs.

• A thecodont's teeth grew from roots fixed into pitted sockets in the jaw bone, as in dinosaurs.

• Some thecodonts resembled sturdy lizards. Others evolved into true crocodiles (still around today).

• The ornithosuchian thecodonts became small, upright creatures with long back legs and long tails.

• The smaller thecodonts included Euparkeria, at about 25in (60cm) long, and Lagosuchus, at about 1ft (30cm) long.

• Euparkeria and Lagosuchus were fast-moving creatures that used their sharp claws and teeth to catch insects.

STAR FACT
Creatures similar to Euparkeria or Lagosuchus may have given rise to the first dinosaurs.

By: Parker, Steve, Dinosaurs

Fabrosaurs

• Fabrosaurs were small dinosaurs that lived toward the beginning of the Jurassic Period, about 208-200 mya.

• The group was named from Fabrosaurus, a dinosaur that was itself named in 1964, from just the fossil of a piece of lower jaw bone, found in southern Africa.

• Lesothosaurus was a fabrosaur, the fossils of which were found in the Lesotho region of Africa, near the Fabrosaurus fossil It was named in 1978.

• The lightly built Lesothosaurus was only 3ft (1m) long from nose to tailend, and would have stood knee-high to an adult human.

• Lesothosaurus had long, slim back legs and long toes, indicating that it was a fast runner.

• The teeth and other fossils of Lesothosaurus show that it probably ate low-growing plants such as ferns.

• Lesothosaurus's teeth were set inward slightly from the sides of its skull, suggesting it had fleshy cheek pouches for storing or chewing food.

• Lesothosaurus may have crouched down to rest on its smaller front arms when feeding on the ground.

• Lesothosaurus probably lived in herds, grazing and browsing, and then racing away at speed from danger.

• Some experts believe that Lesothosaurus and Fabrosaurus were the same, and that the two sets of fossils were given different names.

By: Parker, Steve, Dinosaurs

Horns

• A dinosaur's horns got bigger as the animal grew--they were not shed and replaced each year like the antlers of today's deer.

• Each horn had a bony core and an outer covering of horny substance formed mainly from keratin.

• Horns were most common among the plant-eating dinosaurs. They were probably used for self-defense and to defend offspring against predators.

• The biggest horns belonged to the ceratopsians or "horn-faces," such as Triceratops.

• In some ceratopsians, just the bony core of the horn was about 3ft (1m) long, not including the outer sheath.

• The ceratopsian Styracosaurus or "spiked reptile" had a series of long horns around the top of its neck frill, and a very long horn on its nose.

• Horns may have been used in head-swinging displays to intimidate rivals and make physical fighting less likely.

• In battle, male dinosaurs may have locked horns in a trial of strength, as antelopes do today.

• Armored dinosaurs such as the nodosaur Panoplosaurus had horned spikes along the sides of its body.

STAR FACT
Dinosaurs may have used their horns to push over plants or dig up roots for food.

By: Parker, Steve, Dinosaurs

Prosauropods

• The prosauropods were the first really big dinosaurs to appear on Earth. They were plant-eaters that thrived about 230-180 mya.

• Prosauropods had small heads, long necks and tails, wide bodies, and four sturdy limbs.

• One of the first prosauropods was Plateosaurus, which lived about 220 mya in present-day France, Germany, Switzerland, and other parts of Europe.

• Plateosaurus usually walked on all fours, but it may have reared up on its back legs to reach high leaves.

• Plateosaurus was up to 26ft (8m) in total length, and weighed about 1 ton.

• Another prosauropod was Riojasaurus. Its fossils are 218 mya, and come from Argentina.

• Riojasaurus was 33ft (10m) long and weighed about 4,400lb (2 tons).

• Anchisaurus was one of the smallest prosauropods, at only 8ft (2.5m) long and about 66lb (30kg). It lived in eastern North America about 190 mya.

• Fossil evidence suggests that 16ft (5m) long Massospondylus lived in southern Africa and perhaps North America.

• The sauropods followed the prosauropods and were even bigger, but had the same basic body shape, with long necks and tails.

By: Parker, Steve, Dinosaurs

Tyrannosaurus

• Tyrannosaurus is not only one of the most famous of the dinosaurs, but also one about which a great deal is known. Several discoveries have revealed fossilized bones, teeth, whole skeletons, and other remains.

• Tyrannosaurus lived at the very end of the Age of Dinosaurs, about 68-65 mya. ~

• The full name of Tyrannosaurus is Tyrannosaurus rex, which means "king of the tyrant reptiles."

• The head of Tyrannosaurus was 3.9ft (1.2m) long and had more than 50 teeth, some longer than 6in (15cm).

• Tyrannosaurus fossils have been found at many sites in North America, including Alberta and Saskatchewan in Canada, and Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, and New Mexico in the U.S.A.

• The arms and hands of Tyrannosaurus were so small that they could not pass food to its mouth, and may have had no use at all.

• Recent fossil finds of a group of Tyrannosaurus, includes youngsters, suggesting that they may have lived as families in small herds.

• Tyrannosaurus may have been an active hunter, pounding along at speed after its fleeing prey, or it may have been a skulking scavenger that ambushed old and sickly victims.

• Until the 1990s, Tyrannosaurus was known as the biggest meat-eating dinosaur, and the biggest meat-eating animal ever to walk the Earth, but its size record has been broken by Giganotosaurus.

STAR FACT
Tyrannosaurus, when fully grown, was about 40-45 ft (12-13m) long and stood taller than a semi-truck.

By: Parker, Steve, Dinosaurs