On:

We recently put up a story about a large mystery cat that has been stalking New Zealand, despite the fact that this island nation has no panthers, lions, tigers, leopards or wolves (except in zoos). Now there are mysterious sonic booms taking place over the same area! These booms, which are happening all over the world, could be a sign of global warming.

When people first heard the booming sound, many of them thought it was an earthquake because they also experienced a shaking sensation. One witness saw a meteorite streaking across the sky, which is an alternative explanation, besides deep ocean methane explosions, for the noise, which broke the sound barrier.
read more

On:

UPDATE – As part of his extensive tour for his extraordinary new novel The Grays, Whitley will be on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson THURSDAY, September 14, starting at 12:35 PST and EST on CBS.

He will be at the West Hollywood Book Fair on Sunday, Sept. 17. Keep reading to find out where and when you can see him there. Whitley will be on the “Bloodsuckers” panel, discussing his vampire novels The Hunger, The Last Vampire and Lilith’s Dream, from 2:45 to 3:45 at the Comics & Sci Fi pavilion. To learn more, click here and scroll down. To read about Whitley’s recent book tour, click here.

The Grays will be made into a major motion picture by Sony Corporation.

Art credit: freeimages.co.uk
read more

On:

Those plastic soda bottles you’ve recycled in the last few years are probably part of the carpet that’s in your home or office right now. Could recycled materials part of the clothes we wear? Some people have tried knitting dog and cat hair into sweaters, with varied results. Now researchers are trying to figure out a way to turn chicken feathers into clothes.

Believe it or not, chicken feathers can be turned into fabrics that look just like the wool, linen, or cotton we wear now. With a looming oil shortage, not to mention war in the Middle East, scientists want to learn how we can avoid using petroleum-based synthetics such as polyester. Rayon, which comes from trees, is a natural fabric, but trees are becoming scarce as the population grows.
read more

On:

Sometimes we discover the information we’re looking for by accident, while we’re searching for something else. A detailed analysis of flu patterns shows that the sharp dip in air travel after 911 slowed the spread of flu and delayed the beginning of the 2001-2002 US flu season. If there’s a bird flu epidemic, would it be a good idea to curtail air travel?

Researcher John Brownstein says, “The post-September 11th flight ban was a natural experiment on the effect of flight restrictions on disease spread. For the first time we’ve been able to show, using real data, that air travel spreads the flu, suggesting that reducing the number of air passengers might ameliorate a flu pandemic.”
read more