Brian Gongol
Researchers track stormwater recharge into the Ogallala Aquifer
Margaret Thatcher more popular than any other prime minister since Churchill
The first lady of personal liberty still resonates today. Perhaps that's why there's such an uproar in Britain over the torch-running protests, since the world should still be ashamed of the Chinese government's behavior regarding personal liberties -- especially in places like Tibet.
81% of all e-mail sent in March was spam
Worse, spammers are using dirty tricks like forging the "From" address using real addresses in order to get extra mileage from their attacks. If a piece of spam gets bounced from one site and the return address given is a legitimate one, then the legitimate address gets "returned" spam that it never sent in the first place. The resilience of the crooks behind spam is a good example of why people will probably remain pretty skeptical of "uploading" their brains, as some futurists have suggested will be the path to immortality. As for extending life expectancy, it's probably safer to bet (at least for now) on regenerative therapies, bionic organs, and nano-scale robots that can clean the arteries and attack cancer cells. The subject of longer life got some unusual (but timely) attention in a Barbara Walters special last week.
Sweet, refreshing beer: The 75th anniversary of its return
Prohibition was a stupid idea, because it took a perfectly legal behavior and made it illegal. The result? A bunch of normally law-abiding people became criminals, and the only supplier became the black market. A lesson that seems to escape lawmakers quite often today.
