Checkmate

The word 'Checkmate' in chess comes from the Persian phrase 'Shah Mat,' which means 'the king is dead'.

Iceberg Hoax

Many of you have seen this famous picture and it is also used on some motivational posters.

It's actually a composite of four different photographs taken in Alaska, Antarctica, and California created by nature photographer Ralph Clevenger.

Afghanistan

The only nation who's name begins with an 'A' , but doesn't end in an 'A' is Afghanistan.

New Fillings

A calcium phosphate nanocomposite filling in a tooth can smartly release decay-fighting agents to buffer against acids produced by bacteria, and rebuild the lost tooth minerals by releasing ions into the mineral-deficient area of the tooth.

70 percent of all dental procedures involve replacements to existing repairs, at a cost of $5 billion per year in the United States alone. Now, scientists at the American Dental Association’s Paffenbarger Research Center, have shown that nanotechnology has the potential to lessen that toll by producing tooth restorations that are both stronger than any decay-fighting fillings available today, and more effective at preventing secondary decay.

A dentist creates the filling by mixing the pure liquid resin with a powder that contains coloring, reinforcement and other materials, packing the resulting paste into the cavity, and illuminating the tooth with a light that causes the paste to polymerize and harden. Makes me smile just thinking about.

Merle Haggard, Outlaw

Long before he was an outlaw country crooner, Merle Haggard was a real outlaw. At 20, Haggard and a few friends planned to rob a restaurant.

They got drunk and waited until 3 o'clock in the morning, when they knew it would be empty, but when they broke in, they were surprised to find the restaurant full of people. Turns out, in their drunken haze, they accidentally wandered in at 10:30 pm. The attempted burglary landed Haggard in San Quentin State Prison, where he saw Johnny Cash perform three times, inspiring him to pick guitars instead of locks.

Quotable

Hope sees the invisible,

feels the intangible,

and achieves the impossible.

Robot Surgery

The da Vinci robot has been around for 5 years and used in tens of thousands of surgeries.

Its safety and efficacy have been documented in hundreds of clinical publications. It makes it possible for a patient to have major surgery with only a few tiny incisions. The surgeon can operate with better visualization, precision, dexterity and control than possible using traditional surgical approaches. It has been used in everything from minimally invasive heart surgery to minimally invasive cancer surgery, to treat conditions as diverse as prostate cancer, endometrial cancer, obesity and mitral valve regurgitation.

In short, the da Vinci Surgical System combines robotics and surgical technology that enables surgeons to provide the least invasive treatment option available for a wide range of complex conditions.

Sugar on a Stick

That's the name for new, free, open source software. It runs from a USB stick plugged into any PC and features forty software programs, including Read, Write, Paint, Games, and Etoys. Children can even create their own books with backgrounds and characters.

Sugar is the core component of a worldwide effort to provide every child with equal opportunity for a quality education. It is available in twenty five languages and used every school day by almost one-million children in more than forty countries.

Children, as young as four, can engage in exploring knowledge, expressing themselves through writing, drawing, video, even programming the computer. It allows them to work collaboratively and use it to create a portfolio of their accomplishments and a diary of daily school activities. With the Sugar Learning Platform, the age-old question “What did you do in school today?” takes on new meaning.

Hoax Debunked

An image of an enormous cat being held in the arms of a bearded man began circulating around the internet in early 2000. The picture attracted attention, because it didn't seem possible for a cat to be that large, but the chance that the cat was real couldn't be ruled out either.

At some point an unknown prankster added a caption to the image, claiming it showed "Snowball," a monster cat owned by Rodger Degagne of Ottawa, Canada.

The photo attracted so much attention that it was eventually featured on television shows such as NBC's The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and ABC's Good Morning America, but both Snowball's story and picture were fake.

In May 2001 Cordell Hauglie, a resident of Edmonds, Washington, came forward to admit that he created the fake image by using photo manipulation software and had then e-mailed the image to a few friends as a joke, never intending that it would pass beyond those friends.

A few months later the picture had spread worldwide. Hauglie only realized what had happened when the picture started appearing on TV shows, in newspapers, and in magazines. To his amazement, he had unintentionally become an internet celebrity simply by sharing a joke with a few friends.

Lincoln Revisited

The standing portrait of Lincoln was created soon after the American Civil War. Although it hung in many classrooms, Lincoln never posed for it. Instead, an unknown entrepreneur created it by cutting-and-pasting a head shot of Lincoln onto a portrait of the Southern leader John Calhoun. This was done because there were hardly any heroic-style portraits of Lincoln made during his life.

In the Calhoun image, the papers on the table say “strict constitution,” “free trade,” and “the sovereignty of the states.” In the Lincoln image, these words have been changed to read, “constitution,” “union,” and “proclamation of freedom.”

Quotable

You have to be careful about being too careful.

Breast Cancer

Not a pleasant topic, but this info might help. Having malodorous armpits and wet sticky earwax is bad enough, but Japanese scientists found a more serious problem for women facing these cosmetic calamities.

They found a gene responsible for breast cancer also causes these physical symptoms. The report is from the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology June 2009 edition.

"We do strongly hope that our study will provide a new tool for better predication of breast cancer risk by genotyping," said Toshihisa Ishikawa, Ph.D., from the Department of Biomolecular Engineering at the Tokyo Institute of Technology and the senior researcher involved in the work.

Their discovery could lead to practical tools for clinicians to rapidly identify who might have a higher risk for breast cancer and become lifesaving clues to the early detection and treatment of breast cancer.

Do You Testify

To 'testify' was based on men in the Roman court swearing to a statement made by swearing on their testicles.

Touch Table Technology

You might remember last year when I wrote about the Microsoft table technology or seen it used during the elections. Here is a video of some practical uses.

If you watch the video, be alert during the middle, when he shows what the Iranians are doing in the desert, very interesting. The price is down to fifty-nine thousand dollars, so it might be cheap enough for my next birthday present. hint, hint.