Goodness gracious - balls of fire!
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2002/21aug_flameballs.htm?list55634
This is very interesting stuff. A few years ago I spent quite a bit of time in the Cleveland area and visited this facility. The idea of dropping things in a long vacuum is very appealing and they have been enormously creating in the act of sending objects earthward.
As a mac user I've been counting the days until Jaguar is released. The local Apple store is having a release party on Friday night and I've fallen for it (a new tshirt makes the trip worthwhile). If you are into macs and/or bsd - or if you are really fed up with a windows machine - I recommend looking into this.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/22/technology/circuits/22STAT.html
Tim O'Reilly conducted an informal poll on people switching platforms on Dave Farber's IP mailing list. While folks on that list are anything but normal, the commentary is interesting and something that would not have been generated for Apple in the past.
http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2002/08/21/switch.html
I add that macs seem to be making a comeback in a few scientific circles. Particle physics and cosmology friends seem to have "switched" in fairly large numbers. Other friends report them showing up in other interesting areas. Unix (or a reasonable approximation for those who spit hairs) is a good thing.
Speaking of cosmology, I have to recommend the current issue of Scientific American. I haven't been through the whole thing get (baths get much longer when there is interesting reading material), but a brief article on time machines (mostly on Thorne wormholes) is amusing. It also happens to be online.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=0004226A-F77D-1D4A-90FB809EC5880000&catID=2
and you can even resolve the mind bending paradoxes...
Jessica pointed out a very interesting experiment that looked at cooperation among women. Fascinating stuff and, as she points out, very interesting questions (like how do men behave) arise.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/23/health/psychology/23COOP.html
5:25:36 AM 
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