| 16th Annual Regional Meeting Of Amateur Astronomers
The Cleveland County Astronomical Society will host the 16th annual Regional Meeting of Amateur Astronomers Saturday, January 26th at the Ritch Banquet Hall, in the Dover Campus Center at Gardner-Webb University. This free event opens at 8:00 AM with program beginning at 10:00 and ending at 5:00 PM. Featured will be speakers, astrophotography displays and contest, swap tables, equipment vendors, prize drawings, fellowship with amateur astronomers from the region, and a chance to find out about local events and facilities. The program this year will feature three speakers including Hap Griffin. When he is not at his observatory or modifying cameras for hydrogen-alpha usage, he is the Vice-President for Engineering at South Carolina Educational Television and Radio. He has a degree in Electrical Engineering and is a registered practicing Professional Engineer.
'It just feels like I don't exist anymore'
As the city slept on a cold Wednesday morning, Jayme Spinks was still at the drawing board, pulling an all-nighter on an overdue design job. Ms. Spinks, 24, thought nothing of the sirens, at least not at first. She'd lived on Queen Street West for almost two years and was used to them. But, as the swirling red lights bled through her third-storey blinds, something compelled her to go down to the street and have a look. "Clearly, the place was on fire," she said of the address four doors east, "and there was a lot of smoke coming out of it. Enough to bother me." Back upstairs, she changed out of her pyjamas, gathered her cat and a few belongings and left, planning to return once the fire was out. She didn't realize those items would be all she owned by the end of the day, when she sat in her mother's rec room in Belleville, watching herself on TV, gazing at the flattened remains of her material life.
The toddlers who are running the global economy.
The Federal Reserve's latest attempt to calm the market's tantrums—the half-point interest-rate cut on Wednesday—bought about 90 minutes of market silence. Within hours, as poor economic news continued to materialize, the clamor for further rate cuts began. Mogel puts it in starkly financial terms: "Indulge tantrums and you get short-term gains and long-term loss." .
Engineered Mosquitoes Could Wipe Out Dengue Fever
Scientists at a British biotech company said they have evidence that their genetically modified mosquitoes, which are programmed for sudden, early death, can control the spread of dengue fever. Dengue is carried by mosquitoes and is the scourge of urban areas in the developing world, much as malaria is in rural regions. The company, Oxitec, said it can decimate mosquito populations by breeding genetically modified male mosquitoes, then releasing them to mate with wild females. Their offspring contain lethal genes that kill them young, before they can reproduce. Company officials told Wired News that their latest test results show that the genetically modified bugs can breed just as well as wild ones. "We will be able to control dengue through controlling the mosquitoes that transmit it, especially in large urban areas," said the company's chief scientist Luke Alphey.
What to do with your old digital camera–reuse, reduce, recycle!
Between the flurry of new camera announcements at CES and PMA and year-end holiday purchases, chances are pretty good that you or someone you know has a new digital camera. The question is what to do with the old camera. If it's in working order, you could pass it along to someone less fortunate than yourself (in my case, my 9-year-old niece who love, love, loves the old 4 megapixel snapshooter that was festering in my defunct electronics drawer). But if your old camera is beyond repair and not worth foisting on some poor unsuspecting Luddite, then seeking out an option to recycle the product will win you some karmic points with the environment. One option is to check with the manufacturer of your camera. More and more vendors are providing easy ways to recycle their old products.
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