The European Space Agency has an interesting news release about some new mapping data from its Venus Express spacecraft: "Venus Express has charted the first map of Venus' southern hemisphere at infrared wavelengths. The new map hints that our neighbouring world may once have been more Earth-like, with a plate tectonics system and an ocean of water."

The United States places last among 19 countries when it comes to deaths that could have been prevented by access to timely and effective health care, according to new research supported by The Commonwealth Fund and published in the January/February issue of Health Affairs.

Judge Sonia Sotomayor, the President's nominee for the Supreme Court seat being vacated by the retiring Justice David Souter, is a diabetic. Apparently that fact should disqualify her from the court in the eyes of one San Diego area doctor, who wrote a letter to the San Diego Union Tribune

Ever think of starting up a small-scale Internet radio station on Live365 or a similar service? Well, you can forget about that now. Soundexchange, the "digital performance rights enforcement" wing of the RIAA, has inked a deal with major web radio providers (mainly the music discovery service Pandora) that will make it harder for existing companies to stay afloat and essentially kills off the entire world of web indie radio.

Health care reform is all the rage in Washington these days, and the most significant focus is on the 45 million uninsured in America. But how many of those 45 million could actually afford health insurance -- that is, if they thought it was a priority or found it to be a necessity?

The New York Times is carrying an op-ed piece by Robert Cringely on Google's newly-announced Chrome OS. He sees the announcement of the Chrome OS as a weapon aimed at Microsoft, but one that is not necessarily intended or expected to be a commercial success.

Health insurance is not just a health issue. It's also a jobs issue. Why? Because about 60% of non-elderly Americans get their health insurance through an employer or a labor union. As a result, health insurance and employment are closely related.

The recent statement at the G-8 summit in L'aquila calling all non-signatories to "immediately" sign the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) and banning the transfer of enrichment and reprocessing (ENR) technologies to non-NPT signatories, was perhaps unexpected, but not altogether shocking. The statement comes prior to the visit of Secretary Clinton to India in August, who, like her husband before her, is a strong proponent of the regime.

When the mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) labels your country a security threat, you will probably sit up and take notice. The Global Times published the results of a pulse survey where 90% of the respondents indicated that China's security was threatened by India.

The Mafia were constantly in my thoughts as we travelled around Sicily. This may have had something to do with the book I was reading at the time, John Follain's The Last Godfathers, which was so cram-packed with gruesome murder and body disposal methodology that I was finding it hard to look at an oil barrel without calculating its remains-dissolving acid capacity in litres.

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