Happy Birthday, Genghis!

mcmannes — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 20:36:06 +0000

I am frustrated with mom. Not MY mom, mind you, but the word itself. You see, I understand that Mom, Ma, Mum, Mother are all commonly-used, affectionate nicknames for the female parent and yet, for some reason, I hardly ever use them (save the word ‘mama’). Instead, my years have been spent calling that person [...]

Yao Ming goes into politics

mcmannes — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 16:48:01 +0000

Associated Press SHANGHAI — Retired NBA star Yao Ming has added another line to his post-basketball resume — politician — becoming a member of an advisory body to Shanghai’s legislature. Since the 31-year-old Yao announced last July that injuries had ended his career with the Houston Rockets, he has become a university student and set [...]

Terrific Trio takes Texans to the Top!

mcmannes — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 18:00:43 +0000

The stadium rocked. A struggling team rebounded. Another rematch was set in motion. A tie to the old era of Houston’s NFL football beamed. JJ WATT “It’s just a great feeling to know that Houston’s back,” proclaimed Bum Phillips, coach of the Luv Ya Blue Oilers and father of Texans defensive coordinator Wade Phillips. The [...]

Fiction for Beginners

mcmannes — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 02:49:50 +0000

The best writing comes after you’ve thoroughly revised your draft over a period of months (or years) with feedback from peers and/or editors along the way. Because writing is a long process, don’t hold back; release your creative juices and see where your imagination takes you. You’ll often find that taking chances with your writing [...]

‘Curiosity’ headed for Mars this weekend; The Search for Life is underway!

mcmannes — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 03:07:36 +0000

New NASA rover to scout for life’s habitats on Mars By Irene Klotz 2011/11/24 at 1:22 am EST CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida, Nov. 24, 2011 (Reuters) — A nuclear-powered rover as big as a compact car is set to begin a nine-month journey to Mars this weekend to learn if the planet is or ever was [...]

Memory Loss Reversible? Study says ‘Yes!’…if I remember correctly.

mcmannes — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 14:57:30 +0000

ScienceDaily (July 28, 2011) — Yale University researchers can’t tell you where you left your car keys — but they can tell you why you can’t find them. A new study published July 27 in the journal Nature shows the neural networks in the brains of the middle-aged and elderly have weaker connections and fire [...]

Star Trek collides into first-ever crossover with DC Comics.

mcmannes — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 16:03:15 +0000

San Diego, CA (July 21, 2011) – The original Starship Enterprise has traveled across time and space on its five-year mission, but it will be entering the DC Universe for the first time this summer. IDW Publishing is proud to announce its first-ever crossover with DC Comics’ Super Heroes in STAR TREK/LEGION OF SUPERHEROES, a [...]

The birthday of THE writer – Cormac McCarthy

mcmannes — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 15:50:34 +0000

from Writer’s Almanac (Garrison Keillor, Minnesota Public Radio list serv): Today is the birthday of Cormac McCarthy (1933), born Charles McCarthy Jr. in Providence, Rhode Island. His novels tend to follow the Southern Gothic tradition, and he’s been compared to William Faulkner, Tennessee Williams, and Truman Capote. Richard Woodward, of the New York Review of [...]

Activating ‘Curiosity’ GPS — Location: Mars 2012

mcmannes — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 15:58:33 +0000

New Mars rover arrives at Florida launch site By Irene KlotzPosted 2011/06/23 at 5:52 pm EDT CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida, June 23, 2011 (Reuters) — NASA’s $2.5 billion Mars Science Laboratory, a nuclear-powered, car-sized rover designed to assess the planet’s suitability for life, reached the Kennedy Space Center for launch preparations, officials said on Thursday. Technicians [...]

Remembering your Coffee!

mcmannes — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 22:13:14 +0000

ScienceDaily (June 21, 2011) — A yet unidentified component of coffee interacts with the beverage’s caffeine, which could be a surprising reason why daily coffee intake protects against Alzheimer’s disease. A new Alzheimer’s mouse study by researchers at the University of South Florida found that this interaction boosts blood levels of a critical growth factor [...]

The McGill Daily » New horizons for physics

mcmannes — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 19:04:24 +0000

The McGill Daily » New horizons for physics A little over 100 years ago, a patent worker by the name of Albert Einstein came up with the theory of relativity, stating that the speed of light is constant and unattainable, and completely revolutionizing physics in the process. Great theories followed his work, and we now have [...]

Christmas 2010

mcmannes — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 04:41:29 +0000

Filed under: Technology

Shape Shifters on the way? Next up: Klingon Cloaking Device!

mcmannes — Sun, 17 Oct 2010 20:26:33 +0000

Michio Kaku: Shape-Shifting Technology Is Coming Big Think Editors on October 12, 2010, 12:00 AM Physicist and Big Think blogger Michio Kaku is the closest thing the world has to real-life wizard. With his shocking white hair, he makes prophesies about fantastic technologies that science is close to unlocking. On “The Colbert Report” this summer, [...]

Rockets, Scola bring hope to man battling cancer!

mcmannes — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 16:22:48 +0000

Rockets, Scola brighten day of man battling cancer! By Clutch of Clutchfans.net This article and much more can be found at www.clutchfans.net Kaes Maish’s life was turned upside-down nearly 5 years ago when he was diagnosed with cancer. The father of four has been through the harsh treatments — chemo, radiation and most recently proton [...]

‘Tractor beam’ one step closer to reality: Laser moves small particles

mcmannes — Sat, 11 Sep 2010 04:06:09 +0000

‘Tractor beam’ one step closer to reality: Laser moves small particles. Professor Andrei Rode’s team from the Laser Physics Centre at ANU have developed a laser beam that can move very small particles up to distances of a metre and a half using only the power of light. Whilst the laser beam won’t work in [...]

Gay Marriage…OR…Same-Sex Marriage?

mcmannes — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 05:16:12 +0000

Everyone finds this topic so fascinating. Here’s my take and please don’t let issues with God cloud this. California voted to ban same-sex marriage and a lone judge over ruled it…most likely for 15 minutes of spotlight. People have the right to vote based on “It just ain’t right”… just as a judge can rule [...]

A Couple of my Favorite Skits from SNL…

mcmannes — Mon, 31 May 2010 17:56:37 +0000

Filed under: Technology Tagged: in a box, portman, snl

A Quick Note to Anti-Faith Intellectuals.

mcmannes — Sat, 29 May 2010 14:58:09 +0000

Ah, the beauty of a self-implied intellectual mind and its consistent suppression of any and all things faith-based. It seems brilliant scientists all over the world start each sentence with the fine response, “We had no idea…We couldn’t believe…We didn’t expect to see…We’re hoping to find…Theoretically, it should…We’re not sure exactly why…” and then feel [...]

Fox thriller anti hero Jack Bauer’s Parting Shots

mcmannes — Wed, 26 May 2010 11:56:08 +0000

ENTERTAINMENT – Fox thriller anti hero Jack Bauer’s Parting Shots. Fox producer Howard Gordon had said a few weeks back that the viewer’s of thriller 24 should not have any expectation of a happy ending for its anti hero Jack Bauer. This is the same character that has seen colleagues and loved ones die around [...]

LOST – - THE END!

mcmannes — Tue, 25 May 2010 02:43:14 +0000

Thanks to Lostpedia for all the brilliant insight. And Here….we…..go! THEY WERE NOT “DEAD THE WHOLE TIME” I don’t know why people are having trouble understanding this, as it is CLEARLY explained in the final minutes of the finale episode by Christian Shephard (Jack’s dad). The original Oceanic 815 plane crash happened. Everything on the [...]

FOUND: One ‘Lost’ reading list!

mcmannes — Fri, 14 May 2010 15:15:38 +0000

The show’s creators discuss literary influences, from Stephen King to Flannery O’Connor May 14, 2010 | 7:00 am Ever since Sawyer was shown reading “Watership Down” in Season One of “Lost,” an abundance of carefully placed works of literature have been featured on the show (in gym bags, on book shelves, in episode titles), spawning [...]

Our Universe at Home Within a Larger Universe? So Says Physicist’s Wormhole Research!

mcmannes — Thu, 13 May 2010 13:47:38 +0000

Such a scenario in which the universe is born from inside a wormhole (also called an Einstein-Rosen Bridge) is suggested in a paper from Indiana University theoretical physicist Nikodem Poplawski in Physics Letters B. The final version of the paper was available online March 29 and will be published in the journal edition April 12. [...]

Road construction to improve Main Street – Monday, March 01, 2010

mcmannes — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 00:15:19 +0000

Road construction to improve Main Street Monday, March 01, 2010 Commuters in downtown Humble have been grappling with traffic congestion as Main Street intersection renovations begin, and traffic is funneled down to one lane. Mayor Donnie McMannes provided an update on progress with the project designed to give historic downtown an Old-World charm. “This project [...]

Nikola Tesla, an Inventive Namesake

mcmannes — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 17:49:16 +0000

By HENRY FOUNTAIN ODD, isn’t it, that the people at Tesla Motors named their company after a man who spent years trying to invent a death ray. They didn’t, really. Or rather, they did, but honoring the man who wanted to build a directed-energy superweapon as a way to end wars probably wasn’t what Elon [...]

At 6-6, Rockets’ Chuck Hayes Is the Mite in the Middle – NYTimes.com

mcmannes — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 17:20:43 +0000

At 6-6, Rockets’ Chuck Hayes Is the Mite in the Middle – NYTimes.com. Posted in Rockets, Sports, Texas

Top Scientist Blends Science & Faith; Chemistry & God!

mcmannes — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 15:25:46 +0000

Jim Tour wanted to be a trooper. But now he’s a leading scientist at Rice, building on groundbreaking work of nanotechnology pioneer Rick Smalley. As a teen pumping gas on a highway north of New York City, Jim Tour dreamed of becoming a state trooper. It beat filling tanks. The notion of Tour as a [...]

‘Lifeless’ prions capable of evolutionary change and adaptation

mcmannes — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 16:52:29 +0000

ScienceDaily (Jan. 3, 2010) — Scientists from The Scripps Research Institute have determined for the first time that prions, bits of infectious protein devoid of DNA or RNA that can cause fatal neurodegenerative disease, are capable of Darwinian evolution. The study from Scripps Florida in Jupiter shows that prions can develop large numbers of mutations [...]

WOW!! And I can barely do a WHEELIE!

mcmannes — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 19:14:18 +0000

Posted in Technology

The Collider is Back Online!

mcmannes — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 21:25:28 +0000

(CNN) — “The LHC is back,” the European Organization for Nuclear Research announced triumphantly Friday, as the world’s largest particle accelerator resumed operation more than a year after an electrical failure shut it down. Restarting the Large Hadron Collider — the $10 billion research tool’s full name — has been “a herculean effort,” CERN’s director [...]

Close Call but all is well….

mcmannes — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 22:32:49 +0000

by Kathy Parks (Tribune) Members of the community are reaching out in a show of support for Humble Mayor Donnie McMannes, who suffered a heart attack on Wednesday, Nov. 4, while on the golf course. McMannes, in his early 70s, was taken to Memorial Hermann Northeast, in Humble, for surgery. He was given a stent [...]

“Hold that door! Can you punch floor 23,115, please?”

mcmannes — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 16:35:18 +0000

‘Space elevator’ wins $900,000 NASA prize – space – 06 November 2009 – New Scientist. A laser-powered robotic climber has won $900,000 in a competition designed to spur technology for a future elevator to space. Building a space elevator would require anchoring a cable on the ground near Earth’s equator and deploying the [...]

My Life Explained? No Reward for the ADHD!

mcmannes — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 13:09:52 +0000

ScienceDaily (Sep. 10, 2009) — A brain-imaging study conducted at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory provides the first definitive evidence that patients suffering from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have lower-than-normal levels of certain proteins essential for experiencing reward and motivation. “These deficits in the brain’s reward system may help explain [...]

Creating Quantum Creatures in the Lab? Flu Monster? – Physics – New Scientist

mcmannes — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:57:41 +0000

Could we create quantum creatures in the lab? – physics-math – 15 September 2009 – New Scientist. Quantum weirdness could soon invade the living world, if a scheme to give a flu virus a strange double life comes off. In quantum theory, a single object can be doing two different things at once. This so-called [...]

Multiplying Universes: How Many Is The Multiverse? – New Scientist

mcmannes — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:51:44 +0000

Multiplying universes: How many is the multiverse? – space – 28 October 2009 – New Scientist. HOW many universes are there? Cosmologists Andrei Linde and Vitaly Vanchurin at Stanford University in California calculate that the number dwarfs the 10500 universes postulated in string theory, and raise the provocative notion that the answer may depend on [...]

Rethinking relativity: Is time out of joint? – space – 21 October 2009 – New Scientist

mcmannes — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 03:51:35 +0000

EVER since Arthur Eddington travelled to the island of Príncipe off Africa to measure starlight bending around the sun during a 1919 eclipse, evidence for Einstein’s theory of general relativity has only become stronger. Could it now be that starlight from distant galaxies is illuminating cracks in the theory’s foundation? Everything from the concept of the black [...]

Lynne McTaggart: Why Dan Brown’s Science Fiction Is Mostly Fact

mcmannes — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 19:42:25 +0000

Written by: Lynne McTaggart: Why Dan Brown’s Science Fiction Is Mostly Fact “One of the main characters in Dan Brown’s new book The Lost Symbol , is a scientist particularly interested in ‘mind over matter’: the power of thought–or intention–to affect and change the world. The ‘big idea’ in Dan Brown’s book is that science [...]

I….Can….C….U!

mcmannes — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 15:09:48 +0000

Radio Waves 'See' Through Walls
ScienceDaily (2009-10-12) -- Engineers have shown that a wireless network of radio transmitters can track people moving behind solid walls. The system could help police, firefighters and others nab intruders, and rescue hostages, fire victims and elderly people who fall in their homes. It also might help retail marketing and border control. ... > read full article

Classical Chaos Occurs In The Quantum World, Scientists Find

mcmannes — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 10:22:54 +0000

Classical Chaos Occurs In The Quantum World, Scientists Find Shared via AddThis Even tiny, easily overlooked events can completely change the behavior of a complex system, to the point where there is no apparent order to most natural systems we deal with in everyday life. The weather is one familiar case, but other well-studied examples [...]

How Photon Echoes Can Be Used To Create A Quantum Memory Device

mcmannes — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 17:48:33 +0000

How Photon Echoes Can Be Used To Create A Quantum Memory Device Technologies like quantum cryptography are being developed to send secure information coded onto light beams from one point to another. Yet at present these systems are unable to extend beyond a distance of 50 to 100 kilometres because, beyond that range, too much [...]

@ Church today…

mcmannes — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 19:46:24 +0000

In a concentration camp in Nazi Germany, Victor Frankl, Jewish psychologist said, “They stripped me naked. They took everything- wedding ring, my watch- I stood there naked and all of a sudden realized that moment that although they could take everything from me- my wife, my family, my possessions- they could not take away my [...]

Evil Incarnate

mcmannes — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 18:38:16 +0000

This is the story of a dog named Oreo. Technically, it IS a sad story. It also contains my opinions on both dog and master. I hate this story and yet… First off, let me start by saying that as a human being, I know precisely what evil is. God, too, knows exactly what evil is. [...]

Leaked Title for New KISS Album: “Sonic Boom”

mcmannes — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 19:00:36 +0000

Rumored to be entitled “Sonic Boom”, KISS‘ much-anticipated new album has a tentative release date of October 6. In addition, an update onMelodicRock.com‘s Twitter account states that the effort will be issued as a triple-disc set through Wal-Mart featuring the new album, a CD of re-recorded KISS hits (which was recently released in Japan), and a DVD. However, it should [...]

Latest stem-cell advance proves no need to kill embryos.

mcmannes — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 22:28:13 +0000

BY NANCY FRAZIER O’BRIEN – CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE TUESDAY, 28 JULY 2009 The work of two teams of Chinese scientists who created live mice from induced pluripotent stem cells is “another demonstration that researchers don’t need to destroy embryos” to achieve stem-cell advances, according to a pro-life official at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.The [...]

Testing Relativity and Black Holes In The Laboratory

mcmannes — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 04:32:53 +0000

ScienceDaily (July 22, 2009) — Even Albert Einstein might have been impressed. His theory of general relativity, which describes how the gravity of a massive object, such as a star, can curve space and time, has been successfully used to predict such astronomical observations as the bending of starlight by the sun, small shifts in [...]

‘Star Trek’ Warp Speed?

mcmannes — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 04:56:52 +0000

‘Physicists Have New Idea That Could Make It So.’ ScienceDaily (May 8, 2009) — With the new movie ‘Star Trek’ opening in theaters across the nation, one thing movie goers will undoubtedly see is the Starship Enterprise racing across the galaxy at the speed of light. But can traveling at warp speed ever become a [...]

Enzyme Important In Aging Identified

mcmannes — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 04:51:30 +0000

ScienceDaily (July 13, 2009) — The secret to longevity may lie in an enzyme with the ability to promote a robust immune system into old age by maintaining the function of the thymus throughout life, according to researchers studying an “anti-aging” mouse model that lives longer than a typical mouse. The study, led by Abbe [...]

Michael Jackson, 1958-2009

mcmannes — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 01:59:29 +0000

The boy who never grew up: Michael Jackson, 1958-2009 by Roger Ebert Michael Jackson was so gifted, so lonely, so confused, so sad. He lost happiness somewhere in his childhood, and spent his life trying to go back there and find it. When he played the Scarecrow in “The Wiz” (1978), I think that is how [...]

This Changes the Neighborhood

mcmannes — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 15:17:37 +0000

Plant Communication: Sagebrush Engage In Self-recognition And Warn Of Danger ScienceDaily (June 20, 2009) — To thine own self be true” may take on a new meaning—not with people or animal behavior but with plant behavior. Plants engage in self-recognition and can communicate danger to their “clones” or genetically identical cuttings planted nearby, says professor Richard [...]

Duncan Faces Political Battle Over Education Reform – ABC News

mcmannes — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 00:49:12 +0000

Duncan Has Ear of Basketball Buddy President Once a professional basketball player, the 6-foot-5-inch cabinet secretary also has the ear of President Barack Obama, a personal friend and long-time pick-up basketball buddy. “We’ve played a few times since we’ve been here, haven’t played a ton,” Duncan said of the president. “We’ve both been a little [...]

Zooped.com – 3134 Unbelievable Facts

mcmannes — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 17:05:53 +0000

Zooped.com – 3134 Unbelievable Facts Posted using ShareThis Posted in Technology