Monster Toad

Crikey! This monster cane toad has been captured in Australia. His body is as big as a football, and he weighs two pounds.

Hat Tip: Sky News

From the Things I Know a Little Something About Dep't

From PhysicsWeb.org

Physicists control light at the nanoscale

22 March 2007

Physicists in Europe have unveiled a new technique that can control the intensity distribution of laser pulses at dimensions that are much smaller than the wavelength of the laser light.

The experimental set-up, including a graphical representation of the silver disks that make up the nanostructure.

From Gary Price's Resource Shelf

Guide to World War I Materials

Includes photos, essays, primary documents, films, and sound recordings related to World War I. Read news accounts of the war, including in The Stars and Stripes, a newspaper written by and for American soldiers at the war front.

Guide to Harlem Renaissance Materials

Features writing, music, and art of Harlem during the 1920s and 1930s. Learn about Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, James Baldwin, Robert Blackburn, and others

Hat Tip to FREE - Federal Resources for Educational Excellence

The Library of Congress

War of the Worlds: Truth or Reality

In 1938, the Martians landed in New Jersey.

A humped shape is rising out of the pit. I can make out a small beam of light against a mirror. What's that? There's a jet of flame springing from the mirror, and it leaps right at the advancing men. It strikes them head on! Good Lord, they're turning into flame...

Eyewitness at Grovers Mill, NJ, October 30, 1938

For more War of the Worlds Resources and Information, see here

See The Web

At Ditto.com

Ditto announces 500 million new pictures in our "Image Search"

Including Aishwarya Rai =>

Ice on Mars





New measurements of Mars' south polar region indicate extensive frozen water. The polar region contains enough frozen water to cover the whole planet in a liquid layer approximately 11 meters (36 feet) deep. A joint NASA-Italian Space Agency instrument on



the European Space Agency's Mars Express spacecraft provided these data.

Woo hoo! Mars on Ice!

American Women Through Time

Each section includes a timeline that links specific events with relevant online sources, such as diaries and letters, photograph collections, and lectures by historians.
Each section also includes a guide to research sources that are appropriate for the specified time period. Examples of categories include Advertising, Advice Lit., Clothing, Historical Statistics, Manuscripts, Newspapers, Quilts, and Secondary Sources.

About the Author
Ken Middleton is a reference librarian at Middle Tennessee State University Library. He has a second master's degree, with an emphasis in American women's history, from the same university. His American Women's History: A Research Guide was named one of the Best Free Reference Web Sites in 2004 by the Machine-Assisted Reference Section (MARS) of the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA) of ALA.

Hat Tip: The Internet Scout Report

Shush, Shush, Sweet Librarian



Librarians are protesting a new "action figure" being released by Archie McPhee and Co. of Seattle, Wash. The $8.95 doll, complete with "amazing push-button shushing action!", is "a lovely idea and a lovely tribute to my chosen profession," says librarian Nancy Pearl, 58, whom the doll is modeled after. But other librarians don't like it one bit. "The shushing thing just put me right over the edge," says Diane DuBois of the Caribou (Me.) Public Library. "It's so stereotypical I could scream."





Hat Tip: Bonzer Web Site of the Week

Frog in a Rock

This mummified corpse of a frog was found in a hollow flint 'geode' which was cracked open in 1899 by workmen in a quarry in England. There have been many reports of frogs found inside rocks; some still living in a kind of stupor but which revived once exposed to the air. In 1910 a living toad was found when a piece of coal was broken open; another was
found in 1906 six feet (2 m) underground in a solid layer of clay. The most commonly found seem to be stuck in limestone.

The theory is that a small tadpole somehow enters a crack in a forming nodule or pocket and gets trapped in there as it grows. As it does, the smell attracts tiny insects which feed the toad and keep it alive. Through this crack also comes water and air. This is fine for some of the many examples that have been found but makes no sense in cases where live frogs have been found in totally sealed or deeply buried pockets. Some frogs have been found with the impression of their bodies so tightly jammed against the rock 'pocket' that even the skin's crackles can be seen imprinted on the sides of their frog-shaped hole --meaning the rock formed around them somehow.

Hat Tip to Anomalies Unlimited

THE MYTH OF 'IMPLOSION'

Did you know that only a small percentage of explosive demolition jobs are true 'building implosions'?

Webster’s Dictionary defines implosion as "a violent collapse inward". In the demolition industry, a blaster is usually trying to pull a structure away from adjacent exposures and towards an area large enough to contain the debris. Therefore, the only time a building is truly 'imploded' is when exposures (other structures or areas of concern) completely surround it.




<= NOT AN IMPLOSION
Building dropped into an adjacent parking lot


A REAL IMPLOSION =>
Structures, underground utilites and city streets on all 4 sides





All this, and much, much more about blowing up buildings at ImplosionWorld.com

Hat Tip to Cool Site of the Day

Have you heard about Pandia Search Central?



Now you have ...

Hat Tip to Researchbuzz

Cold Case, CSI and... Global Warming?

Yes, that's right. Read this!

If you have even a passing interest in climate / weather, you should subscribe to Realclimate.org

We're Baaack!

Yes, after a rude interruption by EarthLink (so far, the worst ISP it has ever been my experience to deal with - I strongly urge all of you to spread the word: EarthLink Stinks!), we're blogging and linking again...


Stay tuned!