What’s coming up in the future? From its heyday in the 1950s to its current resurgence, 3-D technology has gone from a cinematic gimmick to a box-office gold mine. James Cameron’s Avatar, heralded for its creation of a three-dimensional fantasy world, is now the highest grossing movie ever. But do audiences really like it better than 2-D and what do they like about it? According to one researcher, the truth can be seen in their faces and eyes.
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Using the television as a babysitter is a BAD idea: The more TV a 2-year-old toddler watches, the more likely it is that they will do badly at school or be unhealthy years later, at age 10.
A study of 1,300 children found that the negative effects on older children increased with every hour of TV they had watched as toddlers. The TV-raised kids even ate more junk food! 11% of the two-year-olds and 23% of four-year-olds studied watched more than the recommended maximum of 2 hours of TV a day.
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We need to get to the moon! – There is an alarming worldwide shortage of Helium 3, a byproduct that is critical to industries such as nuclear detection, oil and gas, and medical diagnostics. Despite the recession, maybe we’d better go to the moon after all!
The helium 3 isotope is relatively rare on Earth, so it is manufactured instead of recovered from natural deposits. It is formed when tritium, a radioactive form of hydrogen, decays. Only the United States and Russia produce significant amounts of tritium gas. Current supplies of helium-3 are sourced from the refurbishment and dismantlement of the nuclear stockpile.
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In same area as the BP spill! – The huge BP oil spill off the coast of Florida has focused our minds on problems with offshore drilling, but it turns out that oil leaks into the Gulf regularly from other sources. Satellite images reveal that there are TWO other offshore drilling rigs that are leaking oil in that vicinity.
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