Groundhog handler Ben Hughes watches Punxsutawney Phil, who did not see his shadow predicting an early spring.

After this week’s weather, I’m sure that everyone is looking forward to spring.  With Punxsutawney Phil not seeing his shadow this morning, spring is supposed to come early, right?

Maybe….maybe not….

Flipping through the history books, it seems Punxsutawney Phil has spotted his shadow 99 out of 114 times. That would mean that there is rarely an early spring. However, according to the Stormfax Almanac, the groundhog is only right 39 percent of the time — a failing grade in school terms.

En-V - General Motors 2-wheeled concept vehicle

Many futuristic electronics showed up at the Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas, including the EN-V “electric networked vehicles” by General Motors.  The EN-V is about half the size of current mini-electric cars, and it’s built on Segway technology, so it can pivot in place and park without any turn radius. GM says five or six of them can fit in one standard U.S.-size parking space. It’s bristling with GPS antennas and motion sensors, so it can autonomously sense possible collisions and avoid them on its own. Since  it can drive itself, it can be retrieved it by telling it to come to you.  For those who live in congested areas, this would be a great way to get around.

Christmas as we know it today began in the early 1860’s.  Probably the most celebrated holiday in the world, our modern Christmas is a product of hundreds of years of both secular and religious traditions from around the globe.  Here are some of the different ways that different cultures celebrate the Christmas season:

Norway: ‘Gledelig Jul!’
Norway is the birthplace of the Yule log. The ancient Norse used the Yule log in their celebration of the return of the sun at winter solstice. “Yule” came from the Norse word hweol, meaning wheel. The Norse believed that the sun was a great wheel of fire that rolled towards and then away from the earth. Ever wonder why the family fireplace is such a central part of the typical Christmas scene? This tradition dates back to the Norse Yule log. It is probably also responsible for the popularity of log-shaped cheese, cakes, and desserts during the holidays.

Mexico: ‘Feliz Navidad!’
In 1828, the American minister to Mexico, Joel R. Poinsett, brought a red-and-green plant from Mexico to America. As its coloring seemed perfect for the new holiday, the plants, which were called poinsettias after Poinsett, began appearing in greenhouses as early as 1830. In 1870, New York stores began to sell them at Christmas. By 1900, they were a universal symbol of the holiday.

England: ‘Merry Christmas!’
An Englishman named John Calcott Horsley helped to popularize the tradition of sending Christmas greeting cards when he began producing small cards featuring festive scenes and a pre-written holiday greeting in the late 1830s. Newly efficient post offices in England and the United States made the cards nearly overnight sensations.

Celtic and Teutonic peoples had long considered mistletoe to have magic powers. It was said to have the ability to heal wounds and increase fertility. Celts hung mistletoe in their homes in order to bring themselves good luck and ward off evil spirits. During holidays in the Victorian era, the English would hang sprigs of mistletoe from ceilings and in doorways. If someone was found standing under the mistletoe, they would be kissed by someone else in the room, behavior not usually demonstrated in Victorian society.

Italy: ‘Buone Natale!’
Italians call Chrismas Il Natale, meaning “the birthday.”

Ukraine: ‘Srozhdestvom Kristovym!’
Ukrainians prepare a traditional twelve-course meal. A family’s youngest child watches through the window for the evening star to appear, a signal that the feast can begin.

Canada
Most Canadian Christmas traditions are very similar to those practiced in the United States. In the far north of the country, the Eskimos celebrate a winter festival called sinck tuck, which features parties with dancing and the exchanging of gifts.

Greece: ‘Kala Christouyenna!’
In Greece, many people believe in kallikantzeri, goblins that appear to cause mischief during the 12 days of Christmas. Gifts are usually exchanged on January 1, St. Basil’s Day.

Central America
A manger scene is the primary decoration in most southern European, Central American, and South American nations. St. Francis of Assisi created the first living nativity in 1224 to help explain the birth of Jesus to his followers.

France: ‘Joyeux Noël!’
In France, Christmas is called Noel. This comes from the French phrase les bonnes nouvelles, which means “the good news” and refers to the gospel.

In southern France, some people burn a log in their homes from Christmas Eve until New Year’s Day. This stems from an ancient tradition in which farmers would use part of the log to ensure good luck for the next year’s harvest.

Akira Fujii captured this record of the moon's progress dead-center through Earth's shadow in July 2000 by aligning his camera on the same star for successive exposures.

Tonight marks the first lunar eclipse that falls on the winter solstice in 372 years.  Those of us in North Americans should have the best seats in the house for tonight’s event, which reaches its climax at 1:41 a.m. CT Tuesday when Earth’s shadow covers every bit of the moon’s disk. For more than an hour, the moon should glow sunset-red, thanks to the light refracted by the edge of Earth’s atmosphere.

In case of cloudy skies, there’s always the Internet. NASA is planning to stream live Web video of the moon as seen from Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama. The embedded video coverage will be accompanied by a Web chat with NASA astronomer Mitzi Adams from midnight to 4 a.m. CT Tuesday.

Exposure to indoor pollution is associated with allergies, severe asthma, hospitalizations for cardiovascular and respiratory disease, and even heart attacks.

Having a clean home doesn’t keep the toxins and pollutants away.  According to the EPA, pollution in the home is often 2 to 5 times higher than it is outdoors.  “The air in your house contains pollen, mold, and ozone that leach in from the outdoors, as well as pet dander and pollutants from household cleaning products,” says Ted Myatt, ScD, a senior scientist at the consulting firm Environmental Health and Engineering, Inc.

Come winter, weatherproofing combined with heated, dry air can boost indoor pollution levels even higher by sealing in airborne toxins and lowering levels of humidity. The combination of the two can pose an even greater risk. “Exposure to indoor pollution is associated with allergies, severe asthma, hospitalizations for cardiovascular and respiratory disease, and even heart attacks,” Dr. Myatt says.

Considering we spend about 60% of our lives in our homes, it’s time to clear the air. Check-out this article to find out what you can do help reduce the toxins and pollutants in the home.

Lun Lun & cub

After almost a month since his birth, Zoo Atlanta allowed the media in to get their first view of Lun Lun’s Giant Panda cub.  The cub won’t be named until he is 100 days old, following Chinese tradition. He will be placed in public viewing areas at the zoo when he can walk, usually around 4 months old. But for now, viewers can watch the online panda cam

Biologically based LEDs could be used to make trees illuminate city sidewalks. Grant Faint/Getty Images

Scientists from the Academia Sinica and the National Cheng Kung University in Taipei and Tainan have implanted glowing gold nanoparticles, known as bio light emitting diodes, or bio LEDs, inside the leaves of a plant. These  nanoparticles will hopefully one day replace electricity powered street lights with biologically powered light that removes CO2 from the atmosphere 24 hours a days.

“In the future, bio-LED could be used to make roadside trees luminescent at night,” said Yen-Hsun Su in an interview with Chemistry World. “This will save energy and absorb CO2 as the bio-LED luminescence will cause the chloroplast to conduct photosynthesis.”

The gold nanoparticles are the key to turning a material that normal absorbs light into one that emits it. When shorter wavelengths of light hit the gold nanoparticles, they get excited and start to glow violet. That violet light strikes the nearby chlorophyll molecules, excites them, and the chlorophyll then produces red light.

.

Virus (purple) circulating in the bloodstream recognized by antibodies (yellow) of the immune system

In a dramatic breakthrough that could affect millions of lives, researchers at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge have been able to show for the first time that the body’s immune defenses can destroy the common cold virus after it has actually invaded the inner sanctum of a human cell, a feat that was believed until now to be impossible.

In the past, it was thought that the antibodies of the immune system worked entirely outside the cells, in the blood and other extra-cellular fluids of the body. Now scientists realize that there is another layer of defense inside the cells where it might be possible to enhance the natural anti-virus machinery of the body.

How the virus is tackled

1. Virus (purple) circulating in the bloodstream recognized by antibodies (yellow) of the immune system
2. Virus attaches to outer cell membrane with antibodies still attached
3. Virus invades the cell membrane and emerges inside the cell
4. Remains of cell membrane disappear and the virus is free to hijack the cell
5. TRIM21 protein (blue) recognizes attached antibodies as foreign material
6. Powerful virus-destroying machines (cylinders) attracted to virus by TRIM21
7. Virus rapidly broken down and disabled within hours

STS-133 Webcast

The final flight of Discovery’s 26 years has been given the green light by NASA.  Lift is set for tomorrow (Wednesday, Nov 3).  This will be Discovery’s 39th lift-off, and its last.  For its last mission, Discovery will be heading to the International Space Station with a load of equipment, including a humanoid robot, Robonaut 2.

The weather forecast is holding steady with a 70 percent chance of acceptable conditions at launch time Wednesday.   Liftoff is scheduled for 3:52 p.m. EDT.

On Samhain eve—what we know as Halloween—spirits were thought to walk the Earth as they traveled to the afterlife. Fairies, demons, and other creatures were also said to be about.  In an early form of trick-or-treating, Celts costumed as spirits are believed to have gone from house to house engaging in silly acts in exchange for food and drink—a practice inspired perhaps by an earlier custom of leaving food and drink outdoors as offerings to supernatural beings.

Samhain was later transformed as Christian leaders co-opted pagan holidays. In the seventh century Pope Boniface IV decreed November 1 All Saints’ Day, or All Hallows’ Day.  The night before Samhain continued to be observed with bonfires, costumes, and parades, though under a new name: All Hallows’ Eve—later “Halloween.”

Halloween comes to America…..European immigrants brought Halloween to the United States, and the celebration really gathered steam in the 1800s, when Irish-American immigration exploded.

Anoka, Minnesota, may be home to the United States’ oldest official Halloween celebration. Beginning in 1920, the city began staging a parade and bonfire.

Among adult cell phone users, 72 percent of them now send and receive text messages, up from 65 percent in September 2009, and 58 percent in December 2007, according to “Cell Phones and American Adults“.   15 percent of teens 12-17, and 18 percent of adults 18 to 24 text message more than 200 messages a day, while just 3 percent of adults 25 to 29 do the same.”

Asteriod burning up in atmosphere

A small asteroid, approximately 20 feet, will do a fly-by of Earth on Wednesday morning.  The asteroid, TD54, will be  approximately 28,000 miles from Earth, only a little over 5,000 miles above the orbiting satellites.  Asteroid TD54, has no chance of entering the atmosphere. However, asteroids of that size would burn up in our atmosphere, not causing any ground damage. Asteroid watchers will need a moderate telescope to view TD54.

Scientists use the laws of physics, for example, to explain why a head-first slide is faster than going for the bag feet-first, how some batters take a few pitches to calibrate the ball’s track.

Then there are the solstices…The summer solstice (June 21), which marks the first day of summer,  and the winter solstice (Dec. 21-22), which marks the fist day of winter, occur when the sun is farthest from the celestial equator.

Benefits of Message

A recent study that measured the biological effects of deep-tissue Swedish massage and light massage showed the biological advantages of message.  Deep-tissue massages are not only great at helping relieve neck and back pain and tension, they also reduce the level of the stress hormone cortisol and increase the number of lymphocytes, white blood cells that are part of the immune system.

The volunteers of the study who had the light massage experienced greater increases in oxytocin, a hormone associated with contentment, than the Swedish massage group, and bigger decreases in adrenal corticotropin hormone, which stimulates the release of cortisol.  Too bad there wasn’t a masseuse on everyone’s payroll!

• Four hurricanes are the record number that have occurred simultaneously – 1893 & 1998
  

  3 hurricanes (Igor, Julia and Karl)

• 2005 had the highest number of hurricanes – 14 hurricanes and 27 named storms (hurricanes & tropical storms)
• Hurricanes are named alphabetically – this year they are to K (Karl)
• The longest lasting hurricane was Ginger in 1971 lasted for 28 days (tracking tropical storms by satellite began in 1961)
• Hurricanes can unleash more than 2.4 trillion gallons of rain a day
• Until 2004, no hurricanes had ever been recorded in the Atlantic Ocean south of the equator. Then hurricane Catarina slammed into Brazil
• September is the busiest month for hurricanes