liambtank11

 __//**How stuff works**//__ **
 * The I-pod Touch

The newest iPod design is the **iPod touch.** A display screen covers most of the front of the iPod touch, making it resemble an Iphone. But the iPod touch doesn't have a virtual Click Wheel that appears on the screen. Instead, it uses the same **multi-touch** interface that the iPhone uses. You navigate through music, videos and other files using your fingers and the touch sensitive screen. With its screen display and WiFi capability, the iPod touch is better than other iPod models.

The thing that sets the iPod touch apart from other iPod models is its touch-screen interference. When you touch the screen, the iPod's circuitry detects the position of your finger. It keeps track of how many fingers you have on the screen and where you move them.



The IPod's touch's pocesser keeps track of where you put your fingers and where they move once you've placed them on the screen. You can slide your fingers from place to place. And You can make pinching or spreading motions to zoom in and out. The iPod touch matches what your fingers are doing with what's happening on the screen:

[|Ipod site]

__** War. Why Obama is sending 30,000 soldiers to Afghanistan **__

President Barrack Obama plans to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan.A senior administration official said an accelerated timetable that would send several hundred Marines by Christmas.With the full complement of troops expected by next summer, the heightened pace of Obama's military deployment war would appear to match the 2007 troop surge in Iraq. Which rushed 20,000 combat forces to start violence there. The Afghan surge would similarly aim to reverse Taliban gains and secure population centers in the volatile south and east parts of the country.

In his prime-time speech to the nation Tuesday night at West Point, Obama will tie the escalation to an exit strategy. laying out a rough time frame and some dates for when the main U.S. military mission would end. Public opinion in this country has become increasingly divided over American participation in the stalemated war. Obama will try to sell a skeptical public on his bigger, costlier war plan by coupling the large new troop infusion with an emphasis on stepped-up training for Afghan forces that he says will allow the U.S. to leave. The new infusion of troops had been envisioned to take place over a year, or even more, because force deployments in Iraq and elsewhere make it logistically difficult to go faster. Instead, Obama directed his military planners to make the changes necessary to speed up the Afghanistan additions, said the official. Who spoke on condition of anonymity because the details had not yet been announced.Military officials said at least one group of Marines is expected to deploy within two or three weeks of Obama's announcement. It would be in Afghanistan by Christmas.Larger deployments wouldn't be able to follow until early in 2010. The initial infusion is a recognition by the administration.That something tangible needs to happen quickly, officials said. The quick addition of Marines would provide badly needed reinforcements. In those fighting against Taliban gains in the southern Helmand province. Itcould lend reassurance to both Afghans and the U.S. public.



[|Link to article]

=__NONPROFIT STATE THEATER BENEFIT RAISES $570,000!__=

On May 16, the 2009 State Theater Benefit Gala--Hollywood at the State featuring Bill Cont. Which honored corporate honoree, CIGNA and Chairman and CEO H. Edward Hanway and patron honoree Adelaide M. Zagoren. President of The Blanche & Irving Laurie Foundation, raised $570,000 for the nonprofit performing arts center. "At a time when charity galas are struggling for their lives, the 2009 State Theater Gala posted a solid success thanks to the unwavering support of our honorees, CIGNA and CEO Ed Hanway and Adelaide Zagoren, and the untiring efforts of our co-chairs Efrem Dlugacz and Ann Asbaty. I stand amazed at their tenacity to stare defeat in the face and still win the victory! This is an unequalled leadership team and we're proud they are part of us," commented Wes Brustad. State Theatre President & CEO.

"The Gala, in the truest sense, was a collaborative effort by the Theatre, corporate sponsors and individual underwriters, to create an incredible success story for the Arts in New Jersey during the challenges of economic recession and budgetary cutbacks," added Gala co-chairs Efrem Dlugacz and Ann Asbaty. More than 1350 ticket holders attended the concert at the theater and 520 patrons attended. The Black-Tie Dinner Dance at New Brunswick's newest hotel, The Heldrich. And The After Party event at New Brunswick's Hyatt Hotel.

[|the article]


 * //__SuperEarth found close by, may host water__//**

A relatively small planet orbiting a star not far from Earth may be made mostly of water, new observations show.“This planet is the most Earthlike planet yet discovered,” comments Geoffrey Marcy of the University of California, Berkeley. The observations are reported in the Dec. 17 //Nature//“We’re on the eve of a new phase of exoplanets studies," adds Sara Seager of MIT. "This planet is a harbinger of what’s to come. It’s not just that we can study this one object in more detail. It’s the torch, telling us about this new thing that’s going to happen.”The planet, called GJ 1214b, is the second superEarth — a planet with a mass roughly between five and 10 times Earth’s — detected as it crossed in front of its star and the first that is close enough for astronomers to study its atmosphere. It is 6.5 times more massive than Earth and 2.7 times wider. The discovery comes on the heels of other exoplanet sightings, two of which may also be superEarths. All three newly found possible superEarths fall in a mass range between that of Earth and Uranus — a range not represented in the solar system. “This is completely unexpected,” says Greg Laughlin of the University of California, Santa Cruz, a coauthor of the two papers reporting the other findings. “It tells us that planets really form very easily.”Because GJ 1214b passes in front of its star, or transits, from Earth’s point of view, it’s possible to tell what the planet is made of. David Charbonneau of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass., and colleagues used the planet’s size and mass to calculate density, a clue to composition. The team found the radius by measuring how much light the planet blocked as it passed in front of the star. The planet’s mass was calculated using follow-up observations from the European Southern Observatory’s HARPS (High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher) instrument, which measures how much the planet’s gravity tugs at the parent star. The only other known transiting superEarth, CoRoT-7b,has a rocky composition (//SN: 10/10/09, p. 8//). On the basis of its density, GJ 1214b could be as much as 75 percent water.GJ 1214b orbits its star, a red dwarf 40 light years from Earth, once every 38 hours at a distance of 1.3 million miles — about one-fortieth the distance between Mercury and the sun. Despite its close orbit, the planet reaches temperatures of only about 280º Celsius because its star is relatively cool.“If the sun is a 1,000-watt light bulb, this star is a 3-watt light bulb,” Charbonneau says. Most of the 412 extrasolar planets foundto date have surfaces that boil at thousands of degrees Celsius.Although the planet is hot as an oven, it may have a hydrogen and helium atmosphere that could provide enough pressure at the surface to keep water liquid, even at such high temperatures. The planet surfaced as part of the MEarth survey. The survey uses eight ground-based, amateur-grade telescopes that automatically follow 2,000 small, dim stars in search of transiting planets. GJ 1214b showed up in the first six months of the start of observations.“The fact that we found it in the first six months means either we were very lucky, or these planets are very common,” Charbonneau says.The other newly found planets also indicate that superEarths are common, Laughlin says. Using the Keck Observatory in Hawaii and the Anglo-Australian Telescope in Australia, Laughlin and colleagues found at least four and possibly six new planets orbiting sunlike stars, the teams report online December 14. One of them, orbiting the star 61 Virginis, is at least five times Earth’s mass, and its detection is slated to be published in the //Astrophysical Journal//. The other candidate superEarth, which orbits the star HD 1461, is at least 7.5 times Earth’s mass, and A paper has been submitted to the //Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society//. None of the new planets are likely to be habitable, though. The planets near sunlike stars are too hot, and the possible atmosphere of GJ 1214b would be thick enough to block all incoming light, an important ingredient for life on Earth. But Charbonneau, Laughlin and Seager all say that finding habitable — and perhaps inhabited — planets is “only a matter of time.”“These planets are like mileposts on the road rather than a destination itself,” Laughlin says. “It’s very exciting to know that we’re getting close."

[|science article]

//__**Unsolved mysteries**__//

Is it possible to bridge the gap between the living and the dead? In the small town of Ellerslie, Georgia, eight-year-old Heidi Wyrick apparently demonstrated the astounding ability to speak with the dead. It all began in February of 1989, just after Heidi’s family had moved to Ellerslie. According to Heidi, a man named “Con” appeared at the front door: //“He had white hair and he had a t-shirt on with blood all over it. And he had a bandage on his hand with blood on it.”// Lisa Wyrick, Heidi’s mother, thought someone was trying to kidnap her daughter://“So I brought Heidi in and I locked all the doors and I got the butcher knife out of the… drawer and I called my husband to come home.”//When Andy Wyrick arrived home, he and Lisa searched the entire neighborhood for someone who fit Con’s description. However, they came up empty handed. Then shortly after her visit from Con, Heidi told her mother about meeting another man. According to Lisa, this time the man’s name was Mr. Gordy: //“I thought that Con and Gordy was the same person, so I thought his name was Con Gordy. And that’s when I started asking everybody. Did they, have they ever heard of a name Con Gordy?”// Lisa happened to mention Con and Mr. Gordy to her sister who had just bought the house next door. As it turned out, a man named James S. Gordy was the former owner of her sister’s house. Lisa was shocked://“When I saw Mr. Gordy’s name on the deed, I was terrified. Because I knew that the previous owners were there years ago… So I knew that Mister Gordy… had to have been dead.”//Catherine Ledford’s family had owned the house next to the Wyricks. When Lisa got in touch with her, Catherine verified that James Gordy had died in 1974://“I knew Mister Gordy when I was a small child. And Mister Gordy owned a real estate company in Columbus and for many, many years he was a Sunday school superintendent at our church up here, Ellison Methodist Church.”//Catherine Ledford had no photographs of Mr. Gordy, but she corroborated Heidi’s description. Mr. Gordy had gray hair, always wore a suit and tie, and shiny black shoes. She brought over photographs of her family. Heidi began looking through the photos://“I had never seen any of those people. And when I got to the bottom, there was this little bitty picture.”// In the picture, Heidi recognized a man with a bandage on his arm and blood on his shirt. According to Catherine Ledford, Heidi had identified Catherine’s Uncle Lon://“Lon lived here when he was a young man. He died in 1957 of cancer. And he lost his hand, I would say before he was 20-years-old in a cotton gin up here in Ellerslie.”//Heidi’s mother Lisa was now convinced that Heidi’s friends were not just figments of her imagination… they were actual dead people://“When I found out… his name really wasn’t Con it was Lon, it scared me to death because I knew Heidi was really seeing something…”//For the next four years, Heidi continued to encounter the benevolent spirits of the two men—James Gordy and Lon Batchelor—both of whom had long been dead. Then in 1993, Heidi’s mother became pregnant. Not long after, an evil spirit came to visit. Lisa Wyrick remembered Heidi’s change in behavior://“Heidi had never been scared of anything. She had never been scared of Con. She had never been scared of Mister Gordy. But when she saw the dark figure in our hallway, she was hysterical.”// According to Lisa, the new spirit became a frequent and sometimes violent guest: //“At first we had… talked about moving. But like I told him I said I don’t think it would be so good to move. Because wherever we go, she’s just got that gift… she’s going to see people from the past, or people that have been dead.”//On February 3, 1994, Heidi’s baby sister, Jordan, was born. Two weeks later, Lisa noticed that Heidi’s other-wordly visitations took a horrifying turn://“She had just deep gashes down her face. And it terrified me. I didn’t know what it was. And I couldn’t imagine what could’ve scratched her that bad.”//Heidi’s father Andy never gave his daughter’s scratches much thought. He just assumed she inadvertently scratched herself during the night. Then, two nights later, he too woke up with a searing pain: //“I had three claw marks going around my side. The next night I went to sleep and I woke up and I had three claw marks down my back. And then it happened again the next night and I woke up and had three claw marks down my chest.”//The Wyrick’s called up a noted parapsychologist, Dr. William Roll, to investigate the unusual occurrences: //“She came up with physical descriptions and with names that she apparently could not have obtained in any ordinary way. So that immediately made me interested in the case. A couple of pictures had been found of Mister Gordy. The hope was that Heidi would be able to… identify… Mister Gordy’s picture if they were presented to her with a number of other photographs.”// Incredibly, Heidi had chosen the photograph of James Gordy. For the second time, Heidi Wyrick had correctly identified her spirits from a photo line-up. Dr. Roll was now certain that Heidi’s experiences were genuine://“Having spoken to… Heidi and… her parents I’m even more convinced that we are dealing with genuine para-psychological experiences. Then the question comes up, why are these things happening to this little girl?”// Why indeed? Was it all just coincidence? Did Heidi simply make two lucky guesses? Or does Heidi Wyrick possess some mysterious power to communicate with the dead? Heidi is now a young woman and no longer lives in the old family home. She reports that she has not seen Mr. Gordy for years. However, she continues to see the mysterious dark figure, as well as numerous other spirits. The sightings are so frequent that Heidi now takes them in stride.
 * Dr. Roll meets with Heidi**
 * James S. Gordy, died in 1974**
 * Lon “Con” Batchelor**

[|Ghost page]

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__//**Wild weather Event**//__

In terms of destruction, the Bulahdelah Tornado that struck near the city of Newcastle in New South Wales Australia was estimated to be a mighty F4 or F5 tornado that destroyed more than one million trees, but on the bright side no lives were lost during the event. The most environmentally impact will take decades to recover from and no amount of money can speed up the growth time of the trees that are planted to replace the trees that were lost. Most tree wood was was unable to use because of sever damage.



media type="youtube" key="32L5OtnIPGk" height="344" width="425" [|Article]

Book review

One of the best book series continues. Greg starts off on New years eve with his new years resolution. His resolution is trying to help people with there problems. Eventually summer vacation comes. Greg's dad tries to make him go to military school. As Greg worry's worries about military school Greg tries to impress a girl named holly. But instead it turns out to be a loss for the soccer team. [|book reveiw]