A bulge in the wall of Jerusalem’s Temple Mount may ignite a huge battle between Palestinians and Jews. This area is the holiest site in Judaism and is the only part that is left of the Temple Mount that was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD. The Muslim mosque called the Dome of the Rock now sits on the site of the ancient temple. Jerusalem mayor Ehud Olmert says, “There are serious grounds for the apprehension that it could collapse. In my view, we have reached the moment of truth.”
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Scientists have discovered that brand name products have a greater impact on our brains than similar, generic items, because brand names engage the “emotional,” right-hand side of the brain. Our brains don’t process all types of words in the same way. Head injury patients can often match a person’s name to a photo, while common words like “house” or “paper” are meaningless to them. Advertising consultant Robert Jones says, “It supports our instinctive belief that brands are a special class of word?they are like a poem all in one word in their ability to evoke and express ideas.”
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Scientists have discovered 3 things that predict how long you?re going to live: a low body temperature, your levels of insulin and a chemical called DHEAS, and how tough your stem cells are. The first two come from experiments in which animals are fed low calorie diets. These animals live up to 40% longer than normal and also have a lower than average body temperature, low insulin levels, and high levels of the chemical DHEAS.
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Microbes may be able to survive on Mars. This means that life could have existed there in the past, and may be there today, hidden under a crust of ice. While microbes aren’t as exciting as discovering a Martian civilization, it does mean that microbes could have traveled on a meteorite from Mars to Earth, seeding life here?meaning we are actually Martians. It could also mean that higher forms of life may have existed on the planet in the distant past and we may be able to eventually find some artifacts from Mars’ distant past.
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