Lucky One

National Forecast

var mylocation='’+document.location+'’;var title;if(typeof(in_location)!=’undefined’) {mylocation=in_location;} var index=mylocation.indexOf(”?”);if(index<0) {index=mylocation.length+1;} var firstStringURL=mylocation.substring(0,index);var finalUrl='’; var urlDel =firstStringURL + “?from=sb_tools_del”; var urlDigg =firstStringURL + “?from=sb_tools_digg”; var urlRed =firstStringURL + “?from=sb_tools_red”; var urlFace =firstStringURL + “?from=sb_tools_face”; var urlVine =firstStringURL + “?from=sb_tools_vine”;

Add this to:

document.getElementById(”social”).className=”socialLinksRSS”; document.getElementById(”addthis”).className=”addthisRSS”;

Check local weather:

	Severe Weather Outlook		National Forecast

Submit Your Video

Backed up

M. Ressler, Lead Meteorologist, The Weather Channel

2:30 p.m. ET 6/6/2008

Midwest | View Regional Video

With a developing heat wave over the South and East and late-fall-like weather over the Northwest, the Plains and Midwest have the dubious distinction of being stuck in the stormy middle again.

Along a wavy front, severe thunderstorms and more flash flooding rain will develop Saturday, Sunday and Monday from the central Plains to the Great Lakes.

High temperatures will range from the comfortable 60s and 70s in the Dakotas to the sultry 90s in the Ohio Valley.

Northeast | View Regional Video

The heat and 90s will surge northward to the Canadian border this weekend with temperatures 10 to 20 degrees above average. Some record highs are likely.

After a cool week, temperatures in Boston will approach 90 Saturday and Sunday while New York City deals with 90s over the next 4 days. Washington will near 100 degrees Saturday through Monday.

A cold front will try to dip southward into Upstate New York and New England Monday. Isolated thunderstorms could pop anywhere across the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic in the heat, but northern New York and northern New England will have the best chance for scattered strong thunderstorms through the weekend and into early next week.

A cold front will zip eastward through much of the region Tuesday, popping more thunderstorms.

South | View Regional Video

Hot high pressure at the surface and aloft will boost temperatures 5 to 20 degrees above average across the lower Mississippi Valley and Southeast right into the upcoming week.

High temperatures will peak in the upper 90s and just over 100 across much of the Carolinas and Georgia this weekend and the mid to upper 90s will linger well into the upcoming week. Record highs are likely.

The drought will worsen over the Southeast as the region remains mostly rain free. Only a few scant isolated thunderstorms may pop in the Appalachians, eastern North Carolina, southern Florida and the northern Gulf Coast.

Meanwhile, ahead of stationary front over the Oklahoma and Texas Panhandles, the southern Plains will be hot and windy with temperatures up to 10 degrees above average. A few thunderstorms will dot Texas and Oklahoma.

South Texas will be the most active. Scattered thunderstorms with locally heavy rain are possible from the Hill Country to the lower Rio Grande.

West | View Regional Video

During the next 7 days and beyond, a series of disturbances will continue to race eastward across the Northwest along a strong jet stream.

This persistent setup will keep temperatures as much as 5 to 18 degrees below average from Washington, Oregon and northern California to Montana and Wyoming. The cool air mass will be dotted with showers, thunderstorms and mountain snow.

Monday through Wednesday, another particularly potent storm will sweep through the Northwest similar to what just occurred earlier this week. Look for more snow advisories in the northern and possibly the central Rockies.

The Southwest will be dry with temperatures ranging from near average to 7 degrees above average. Highs will creep up into the 90s in the Central Valley of California and to between 100 and 110 in the deserts.

The marine layer will keep the California coast cool through Tuesday.

Human Weapon

Human Weapon

	Directed by Ilan Ziv Produced by Ilan Ziv & Serge Gordey
	For those unsatisfied with sensational television coverage featuring "terrorism experts," HUMAN WEAPON provides the first sober, in-depth examination of the complexities of the suicide bombing phenomenon. Filmed in Iran, Lebanon, Sri Lanka, Israel, Palestine, Europe and the United States, HUMAN WEAPON weaves dramatic, previously unseen footage together with interviews of key militants whose organizations use suicide bombing as part of their strategy. It supplements these scenes with powerful human stories. - In Iran, the film looks at the "prototype" for the human weapon - the Basiji - young volunteers who were recruited to sacrifice themselves on the battlefield during Iran’s long war with Iraq. - In Lebanon, the film combines interviews with key leaders of Hizbollah (the Party of God) and a former CIA agent with rare archival material and footage of a haunting visit to the family of a martyr. It also explores the very first suicide bombings - attacks directed at the U.S. Embassy and Marine barracks in 1983. - In Sri Lanka, the films examines the Tamil Tiger separatist movement, which took suicide bombings to the next level by launching hundreds of suicidal attacks against both military and political targets. - In Israel and the Palestinian territories, the film interviews failed suicide bombers, key leaders of Hamas and other militant organizations, Israeli doctors, and Palestinian psychiatrists. The film draws an intimate portrait of a recent suicide bomber and his community on the West Bank, to trace the recent phase in the evolution of suicide bombing: the ultimate weapon of terror, the political strategy of targeting civilians. - Finally, in the United States, HUMAN WEAPON explores, with the help of well-known author Robert Jay Lifton, some of the far-reaching historical ramifications of suicide bombing. HUMAN WEAPON is not primarily concerned with suicide bombing as a local phenomenon in a particular conflict. Rather, it strives to understand the recent history, and how the introduction of this new weapon has unleashed a different kind of warfare, whose impact we are yet to grasp. "* (4 Stars!). Chilling and instructive."—David Sterritt, Christian Science Monitor* "A gripping and important documentary."—Stephen Holden, New York Times "HUMAN WEAPON provides an in-depth view into the global trend of suicide bombing and contextualizes resistence groups in their appropriate place in history."—Middle East Studies Association Bulletin "The film debunks many of the stereotypes about suicide bombers. Truly disturbing. …some scenes will stay with me for weeks."—Janus Head "Powerfully analytical."—Bob Campbell, Star-Ledger (NJ) "Highly Recommended… this is an excellent introduction to this currently prevalent form of warfare."—Educational Media Reviews Online 2002 Middle East Studies Association FilmFest 2002 Prix Europa, Special Commendation (2nd Prize)

World War 2

Image:Holocaust123.JPG From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia • Ten things you may not know about Wikipedia • Jump to: navigation, search * Image * File history * File links Image:Holocaust123.JPG No higher resolution available. Holocaust123.JPG‎ (500 × 410 pixels, file size: 44 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) [edit] Summary Non-free / fair use media rationale for World War II Description This image is a faithful digitalization of World War II, a historically significant photograph. Source The image has been derived from: Yad Vashem. Article World War II Portion used Because the image is historically significant, the entire image is needed to identify the subject, properly convey the meaning and branding intended, and avoid tarnishing or misrepresenting the image. Low resolution? The copy is of sufficient resolution for commentary and identification but lower resolution than the original. Copies made from it will be of inferior quality, unsuitable for uses that would compete with any commercial purpose of the photograph. Purpose of use Identification and critical commentary in the World War II article, a subject of public interest. It makes a significant contribution to the user’s understanding of the article, which could not practically be conveyed by words alone. The image is placed next to the associated material discussing the work, to show the primary visual image associated with the work, and to help the user quickly identify the work and know they have found what they are looking for. Replaceable? Because the image depicts a non-reproducible historic event, there is almost certainly no free equivalent. Any substitute that is not a derivative work would fail to convey the meaning intended, would tarnish or misrepresent its image, or would fail its purpose of identification or commentary. Other information Use of the historic image in the article complies with Wikipedia non-free content policy and fair use under United States copyright law as described above. The image meets general Wikipedia content requirements and is encyclopaedic. [edit] Licensing Copyrighted This image is a faithful digitalization of a unique historic image, and the copyright for it is most likely held by the person who took the image or the agency employing the person. It is believed that the use of this Image * to illustrate the event or historically notable person(s) in question where: * The image depicts a non-reproducible historic event or historically notable person(s), and no free alternative exists or can be created, and * The image is low resolution and of no larger and of no higher quality than is necessary for the illustration of an article, and the use of the image on Wikipedia is not expected to decrease the value of the copyright, * on the English-language Wikipedia, hosted on servers in the United States by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation, qualifies as fair use under United States copyright law. Other use of this image, on Wikipedia or elsewhere, may be copyright infringement. See Wikipedia:Fair use for more information. If this does not accurately describe this image, please remove this tag and provide a different fair use rationale. To the uploader: please add a detailed fair use rationale for each use, as described on Wikipedia:Image description page, as well as the source of the work and copyright information. Image from Yad Vashem. File history Click on a date/time to view the file as it appeared at that time. Date/Time Dimensions User Comment current 01:17, 24 December 2006 500×410 (44 KB) FrummerThanThou (Talk | contribs) * Search for duplicate files * Edit this file using an external application See the setup instructions for more information. File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): * World War II * The Holocaust

What Causes a Heart Attack?

Most heart attacks occur as a result of coronary artery disease (CAD). CAD is the buildup over time of a material called plaque on the inner walls of the coronary arteries. Eventually, a section of plaque can break open, causing a blood clot to form at the site. A heart attack occurs if the clot becomes large enough to cut off most or all of the blood flow through the artery.

Coronary Artery With Plaque Buildup

The illustration shows a normal artery with normal blood flow (figure A) and an artery containing plaque buildup (figure B).

The blocked blood flow prevents oxygen-rich blood from reaching the part of the heart muscle fed by the artery. The lack of oxygen damages the heart muscle. If the blockage isn’t treated quickly, the damaged heart muscle begins to die.

Heart attack also can occur due to problems with the very small, microscopic blood vessels of the heart. This condition is called microvascular disease. It’s believed to be more common in women than in men.

Another less common cause of heart attack is a severe spasm (tightening) of a coronary artery that cuts off blood flow through the artery. These spasms can occur in coronary arteries that don’t have CAD. It’s not always clear what causes a coronary artery spasm, but sometimes it can be related to:

Taking certain drugs, such as cocaine
Emotional stress or pain
Exposure to extreme cold
Cigarette smoking

The animation below shows how a heart attack occurs. Click the “start” button to play the animation. Written and spoken explanations are provided with each frame. Use the buttons in the lower right corner to pause, restart, or replay the animation, or use the scroll bar below the buttons to move through the frames.

The animation shows how blood flow is blocked in the heart, leading to a heart attack

The animation shows how blood flow is blocked in the heart, leading to a heart attack.

Other Names

Who Is At Risk

cAUSES OF Skin cancer

Exposure to the sun’s ultraviolet (UV) rays appears to be the most important factor in the development of skin cancer.

The overall level of UV light reaching the Earth’s surface is increasing because our planet’s atmospheric ozone layer, which filters out much of the UV radiation, is thinning over certain parts of the globe. "The greatest hazard humans face from the effects of ozone depletion is skin cancer," according to the Skin Cancer Foundation, a nonprofit group that raises research funds and educates the public and medical community about skin cancer.

The beach, pool-side and golf course are not the only places where you need sun protection. UV radiation can pierce your car window and damage your skin as you drive. Sun exposure also can damage facial skin in winter when you go skiing or sledding, and accelerate the skin’s aging process with premature dryness and wrinkles. Development of sun-induced skin cancer is a very slow process. Research suggests that long-term exposure to UV radiation raises your skin cancer risk visibly through sunburn and invisibly by damaging the DNA in skin cells.

While nearly 90 percent of all skin cancers are thought to stem from the sun’s UV radiation. Other factors also make skin cancer more likely, according to the American Cancer Society. They include:

Fair complexion: Having light skin, skin that freckles or burns easily and blue eyes increases your risk of skin cancer.

Moles: Irregularly shaped or colored moles and having lots of moles may increase your risk of melanoma.

Chemical exposure: Exposure to arsenic, a heavy metal used in making some insecticides, and found in some water supply, increases the risk of developing non-melanoma skin cancer. Occupational exposure to industrial tar, coal, paraffin and certain types of oil also may increase the non-melanoma skin cancer risk.

Radiation exposure: Radiation therapy may increase the risk of a non-melanoma skin cancer.

Long-term or severe skin inflammation or injury: In rare cases, non-melanoma skin cancers grow in scars from severe burns, on areas of skin over severe bone infections, and on skin damaged by certain severe inflammatory skin diseases.

Psoriasis treatment: Patients treated with the drug psoralen and ultraviolet light (PUVA) may have an elevated risk of squamous cell carcinoma.

Actinic keratosis: These thick scaly patches of skin can sometimes develop into cancer.

Xeroderma pigmentosum: This very rare hereditary disease makes it difficult for the skin to repair DNA damage from UV light. Xeroderma pigmentosum patients typically suffer many skin cancers, which may begin in childhood.

Basal cell nevus syndrome: People born with this rare condition develop multiple basal cell carcinomas and other health problems.

Reduced immunity: People whose immune system is diminished because of HIV infection, drugs that prevent rejection of donor organs or chemotherapy are at increased risk for non-melanoma skin cancer. New immune drugs used to treat skin disease may affect the body’s immune system and increase the risk of cancer, especially lymphomas.

Related Articles

	What Is Skin Cancer?
	How Common Is Skin Cancer?
	Who Is at Greatest Risk for Skin Cancer?
	Detecting and Diagnosing Skin Cancer
	Treating Skin Cancer
	Preventing Skin Cancer

Causes of abnormal vaginal discharge.

Lactobacilli are common in the human body. They aid digestion in the gastrointestinal tract and help prevent infection in the vagina. The lactobacilli found in the vagina produce lactic acid which maintains a level of acidity that provides a good defense against infection. But when this level is disrupted infection can set in.

The causes of abnormal vaginal discharge can be either infectious or non-infectious:
Infectious causes include:

Bacterial vaginosis
Vaginal candidiasis (yeast infection)
Cervico-vaginitis resulting from a sexually transmitted infection (STI)
- Trichomonas
- Gonorrhea and chlamydia

Non-infectious causes:

Use of perfumes, soaps, or latex on or around the vagina
Contact dermatitis - a skin reaction resulting from exposure to allergens or irritants
Atrophic vaginitis - inflammation of the vagina due to the thinning and shrinking of the tissues, as well as decreased lubrication.
Excessive vaginal secretions

Prevention

Always practice safe sex. Wear a condom to protect yourself from HIV, syphilis, gonorrhea, and other STIs.
Form good hygeine habits. Wipe from front to back, avoid vaginal douching. Avoid certain sexual activities that may also contribute to vaginal infections.
If you suffer from vaginal irritation easily, try to avoid scented sanitary napkins and toilet paper, soap, shampoo, bubble bath, tight undergarments made of synthetic fibres or latex, etc. This may reduce your chances of infection.
Good health habits, such as exercise, weight loss, not eating refined sugar, and better stress management, are helpful.

Basketball - James Naismith (1861-1939)

Y.M.C.A. training school [Springfield College], Springfield, Mass..- James Naismith

Photo: Y.M.C.A. training school [Springfield College], Springfield, Mass. - home of basketball.

By Mary Bellis

James Naismith was the Canadian physical education instructor who invented basketball in 1891. James Naismith was born in Almonte, Ontario and educated at McGill University and Presbyterian Cllege in Montreal. He was the physical education teacher at McGill University (1887 to 1890) and at Springfield College in Springfield, Massachusetts (1890 to 1895). At Springfield College (which was then the Y.M.C.A. training school), James Naismith, under the direction of American phys-ed specialist Luther Halsey Gulick, invented the indoor sport of basketball.

The first formal rules were devised in 1892. Initially, players dribbled a soccer ball up and down a court of unspecified dimensions. Points were earned by landing the ball in a peach basket. Iron hoops and a hammock-style basket were introduced in 1893. Another decade passed, however, before the innovation of open-ended nets put an end to the practice of manually retrieving the ball from the basket each time a goal was scored.

In 1959, James Naismith was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame (called the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame.)

Dr. James Naismith’s Original 13 Rules for Basketball

Patent Drawing: Basketball Patent

The Basketball
U.S. patent #1,718,305 was granted to G.L. Pierce on June 25, 1929 for the "basketball" used in the game.

James Naismith - Biography
Under orders from Dr. Luther Gulick, head of Physical Education at the School for Christian Workers. James Naismith had 14 days to create an indoor game that would provide an "athletic distraction" for a rowdy class through the brutal New England winter.
Also See: The Life and Times of Dr. James Naismith

The History of Basketball
It all started with two peach baskets affixed to a 10-foot-high railing and with a soccer ball in a YMCA (Young Men’s Christian Association) in Massachusetts.

Color Wheel Romance

Color Wheel Romance By DIY Maven Webster’s defines a color wheel as "a circular diagram of the spectrum used to show the relationships between the colors." Yeah, it wasn’t helpful to me either in actually interpreting the wheel for practical use. Some further investigation of color and compatibility was needed.

Biodiversity

Biodiversity is a broad concept, so a variety of objective measures have been created in order to empirically measure biodiversity. Each measure of biodiversity relates to a particular use of the data.

For practical conservationists, this measure should quantify a value that is broadly shared among locally affected people. For others, a more economically defensible definition should allow the ensuring of continued possibilities for both adaptation and future use by people, assuring environmental sustainability.

As a consequence, biologists argue that this measure is likely to be associated with the variety of genes. Since it cannot always be said which genes are more likely to prove beneficial, the best choice for conservation is to assure the persistence of as many genes as possible. For ecologists, this latter approach is sometimes considered too restrictive, as it prohibits ecological succession.

Biodiversity is usually plotted as taxonomic richness of a geographic area, with some reference to a temporal scale. Whittaker^[4] described three common metrics used to measure species-level biodiversity, encompassing attention to species richness or species evenness:

Species richness - the least sophisticated of the indices available.
Simpson index
Shannon index

There are three other indices which are used by ecologists:

Alpha diversity refers to diversity within a particular area, community or ecosystem, and is measured by counting the number of taxa within the ecosystem (usually species)
Beta diversity is species diversity between ecosystems; this involves comparing the number of taxa that are unique to each of the ecosystems.
Gamma diversity is a measure of the overall diversity for different ecosystems within a region.

[edit] Distribution

Biodiversity is not distributed evenly on Earth. It is consistently richer in the tropics and in other localized regions such as the California Floristic Province. As one approaches polar regions one generally finds fewer species. Flora and fauna diversity depends on climate, altitude, soils and the presence of other species. In the year 2006 large numbers of the Earth’s species were formally classified as rare or endangered or threatened species; moreover, many scientists have estimated that there are millions more species actually endangered which have not yet been formally recognized. About 40 percent of the 40,177 species assessed using the IUCN Red List criteria, are now listed as threatened species with extinction - a total of 16,119 species.^[5]

A biodiversity hotspot is a region with a high level of endemic species. These biodiversity hotspots were first identified by Dr. Norman Myers in two articles in the scientific journal The Environmentalist.^[6]^[7] Dense human habitation tends to occur near hotspots. Most hotspots are located in the tropics and most of them are forests.

Brazil’s Atlantic Forest is considered a hotspot of biodiversity and contains roughly 20,000 plant species, 1350 vertebrates, and millions of insects, about half of which occur nowhere else in the world. The island of Madagascar including the unique Madagascar dry deciduous forests and lowland rainforests possess a very high ratio of species endemism and biodiversity, since the island separated from mainland Africa 65 million years ago, most of the species and ecosystems have evolved independently producing unique species different from those in other parts of Africa.

Many regions of high biodiversity (as well as high endemism) arise from very specialized habitats which require unusual adaptation mechanisms. For example the peat bogs of Northern Europe and the alvar regions such as the Stora Alvaret on Oland, Sweden host a large diversity of plants and animals, many of which are not found elsewhere.

[edit] Evolution

Apparent marine fossil diversity during the Phanerozoic

Biodiversity found on Earth today is possibly the result of 4 billion years of evolution. The origin of life has not been definitely established by science, however some evidence suggests that life may already have been well-established a few hundred million years after the formation of the Earth. Until approximately 600 million years ago, all life consisted of bacteria and similar single-celled organisms.

The history of biodiversity during the Phanerozoic (the last 540 million years), starts with rapid growth during the Cambrian explosion—a period during which nearly every phylum of multicellular organisms first appeared. Over the next 400 million years or so, global diversity showed little overall trend, but was marked by periodic, massive losses of diversity classified as mass extinction events.

The apparent biodiversity shown in the fossil record suggests that the last few million years include the period of greatest biodiversity in the Earth’s history. However, not all scientists support this view, since there is considerable uncertainty as to how strongly the fossil record is biased by the greater availability and preservation of recent geologic sections. Some (e.g. Alroy et al. 2001) argue that corrected for sampling artifacts, modern biodiversity is not much different from biodiversity 300 million years ago.^[8] Estimates of the present global macroscopic species diversity vary from 2 million to 100 million species, with a best estimate of somewhere near 13-14 million, the vast majority of them arthropods.^[9]

Most biologists agree however that the period since the emergence of humans is part of a new mass extinction, the Holocene extinction event, caused primarily by the impact humans are having on the environment. It has been argued that the present rate of extinction is sufficient to eliminate most species on the planet Earth within 100 years.^[10]

New species are regularly discovered (on average between 5-10,000 new species each year, most of them insects) and many, though discovered, are not yet classified (estimates are that nearly 90% of all arthropods are not yet classified).^[9] Most of the terrestrial diversity is found in tropical forests.

[edit] Benefits

There are a multitude of anthropocentric benefits of biodiversity in the areas of agriculture, science and medicine, industrial materials, ecological services, in leisure, and in cultural, aesthetic and intellectual value. Biodiversity is also central to an ecocentric philosophy. It is important for contemporary audiences to understand the reasons for believing in conservation of biodiversity. One way to identify the reasons why we believe in it is to look at what we get from biological diversity and the things that we lose as a result of species extinction, which has taken place over the last 600 years. Mass extinction is the direct result of human activity and not of natural phenomena which is the perception of many modern day thinkers. There are many benefits that are obtained from natural ecosystem processes. Some ecosystem services that benefit society are air quality, climate (both global Co2 sequestration and regional and local), water purification, disease control, biological pest control, pollination and prevention of erosion. Along with those come non- material benefits that are obtained from ecosystems which are spiritual and aesthetic values, knowledge systems and the value of education that we obtain today. However, the public remains unaware of the crisis in sustaining biodiversity. Biodiversity takes a look into the importance to life and provides modern audiences with a clear understanding of the current threat to life on Earth.

Potential and Kinetic Energy

Potential energy is energy that is stored in an object. If you stretch a rubber band, you will give it potential energy. As the rubber band is released, potential energy is changed to motion.

rubberband

Kinetic energy is energy of motion. A rubber band flying through the air has kinetic energy. When you are walking or running your body is exhibiting kinetic energy. Potential energy is converted into kinetic energy. Before the yo-yo begins its fall it has stored energy due to its position. At the top it has its maximum potential energy. As it starts to fall the potential energy begins to be changed into kinetic energy. At the bottom its potential energy has been converted into kinetic energy so that it now has its maximum kinetic energy. A waterfall has both potential and kinetic energy. The water at the top of Bridal Veil Falls has stored potential energy. When the water begins to fall, its potential energy is changed into kinetic energy. This change in energy also happens at Niagara Falls where it is used to provide electricity from the transformation of mechanical and electromagnetic energy to parts of the northeastern United States.