Diminishing Oxygen ... Consequences? - (STE)

Peter Tachtell of The Guardian writes about the decrease in oxygen in the Earth's atmosphere and the potential impact on human beings' health. He goes so far as to say it could threaten our survival.

Barack Rolled - (ENT)

Whether you like Barack Obama or not, and whether you are a Democrat, Republican, Independent or Whig, this is hilarious.

How to Be Prepared in the Event of an Emergency - (CHL)

Tara Parker-Pope also had a story last week that draws from the book "The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes — and Why" by Amanda Ripley, a reporter for Time magazine who has covered floods, fires and plane crashes. In short, Ripley says people need to be prepared and then act promptly and decisively based on the emergency circumstances.

Six Ways to Be a Better Patient - (CHL)

Following last week's "Six Rules Doctors Need to Know," The New York Times "Well" blog has today, "Six Ways to Be a Better Patient."

The Case Against Early Cancer Screening - (CHL)

Tara Parker-Pope of The New York Times has an interesting "counter-intuitive" story about the potential downside of early cancer screening. Last week a panel of leading medical experts advised doctors to stop screening older men for prostate cancer, saying essentially that early detection presents more risks than it does good. One main reason why - at least in the case of prostate cancer in older men - is that a large percentage of prostate cancers are not deadly, and most older men would die of other causes and be minimally affected by slow growing prostate cancer. When you consider the invasiveness of prostate cancer treatment and its potential effects, weighed against the non-life threatening nature of the disease, it may be best to leave the prostate cancer untreated.

The 87 Year Old Tailor From Riverdale - Bernard Adler - (MISC)

A touching story from The New York Times about Bernard Adler, a Holocaust survivor, who lives with his wife at the Hebrew Home at Riverdale in The Bronx.

Why You Should Be Nervous About Swimming in the Ocean - (STE)

This doesn't make swimming in the ocean sound so safe.

A Few Degrees Away from Extinction? - (STE)

Oliver Tickell of The Guardian (U.K.) writes today about global warming and what it would take for it to wipe the human species from the planet. And it's very little. 4 degrees Celsisus is all it will take - that's about seven degrees Fahrenheit, and there is an excellent book entitled "Six Degrees" by Mark Lynas that discusses on a broader scale how each degree increase in the global temperature will affect the environment and global ecosystems. According to Mr. Lynas, once we reach six degrees (Fahrenheit) of warming, it's pretty much the end of the world for human beings. That's consistent with what Mr. Tickell describes in the event of a 4C rise in the global temperature: "the end of the living and the beginning of survival for humankind. Or perhaps, the beginning of our extinction."

A big part of the impact is the melting of the polar ice caps, which not only would raise sea levels so high that all of the world's coastal areas would be lost (that includes New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco and even Nantucket), it would also result in the release of astounding amounts of methane and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

When you are talking about the end of human life, four degrees Celsisus does not seem like such a significant amount of warming. In other words, we are too perilously close not to take very drastic actions to stall and hopefully reverse the trend of global warming. If you really want to be scared into taking action, read Mr. Lynas's book.

Here's more on this topic from The Guardian last week.

The "Sidezoomer" Issue

We enjoyed this story from The New York Times Magazine about the etiquette of the highway merge or the funneling of lanes on the road. It discusses those people who feel comfortable zooming all the way to the front of the line and squeezing their way in, instead of lining up in the accessible lanes like the rest of the good-intentioned and good-souled drivers on the road. It also discusses people's reactions to those bad-souled "sidezoomers," a term coined by the author.

Finally, and most interestingly, the article devles into the study of traffic patterns and the most efficient means of highway merging, which actually involves a controlled form of sidezooming.

What to Do About the Ol' Gas Guzzler

Here's an interesting article from The New York Times on some things consumers should consider when deciding what to do about their SUV 's - keep them, trade them in, sell them, etc. The authors argue that it may make more economic sense to keep an SUV than get rid of it.

"Bad News for the Yankees"

Not only a line from the classic move The Bad News Bears, last night was a horrible night for the New York Yankees and their fans. Joba Chamberlain was forced to leave the game during the fifth inning of last night's game against the Texas Rangers complaining of stiffness in his pitching shoulder. The last thing you want to hear about any young hard-throwing pitcher with #1 starter stuff are the words 'shoulder' and 'injury' anywhere close to one another. You don't even want them in the same area code. But that's what the Yankees are reporting today. Joba is going to miss at least one start - very bad news for a team that is already without its ace, Chien-Ming Wang (most likely for the rest of the season) its starting catcher, Jorge Posada (out for the season, and its starting left fielder, Hideki Matsui (may be back soon from a knee injury).

If the Yankees are without Joba for an extended period, they will have few options, none of which are very appealing: 1) bring Ian Kennedy back to the majors. Kennedy, who started in the rotation out of spring training but faltered miserably in April and May has been pitching great in triple A, but the Yankees don't believe he's ready to rejoin the rotation. Or at least they didn't as of Sunday. 2) Keep Darrell Rasner in the rotation. They had announced yesterday that Dan Giese, who pitched three scoreless innings against the Angels in Sunday's 14-9 win, would take Rasner's spot in the rotation and start on Friday against the Angels in Anaheim. Maybe they keep Rasner in the rotation and let Giese take Chamberlain's spot. Maybe they can ride it out with Rasner and Giese if (and that's a big if) and until Phil Hughes is ready to return. Hughes pitched three impressive scoreless innings last Tuesday in a rehab assignment for Single A Charleston, and then three and two thirds scoreless innings on Saturday. (*Note: Carl Pavano is not among the options). Hughes is now up to Triple A Scranton, but he is at least three starts away from rejoining the big leagues and his ERA was 9.00 before he was injured. 3) Comb the waiver wires for a pitcher. However it is unlikely the Yankees will be able to pick up a serviceable starter at this point. We think Yankees fans should be thankful this injury didn't occur a week ago before the trading deadline because it might have forced the Yankees to make a desperate trade to get another starter and perhaps given up too much young talent for a mediocre, expensive pitcher, such as Jarrod Washburn of Seattle. If they could have gotten Washburn for a low level prospect, that would have been one thing. But a Chamberlain injury last week could have allowed Seattle to ask for a lot more, and the Yankees may have been willing to give it.

Further bad news last night was the walk-off grand slam that newly acquired reliever Damaso Marte gave up in the bottom of the ninth as the Yankees lost 9-5 to Texas and lost a huge opportunity to gain a game on both Boston and Tampa Bay who lost their games to Kansas City and Cleveland, respectively. This was the second day in a row a Yankees reliever gave up a grand slam. Yesterday, it was Edwar Ramirez who become the first Yankees pitcher ever to get a win while pitching one inning or less and giving up four or more runs.

iPhone Apps

Here is a story from The Wall Street Journal about the business of independent software developers creating applications for the iPhone. The software applications which are approved by Apple are available on the Apple App Store and are quickly downloaded to the iPhone, perhaps the biggest change from the first version of the phone - even bigger than the upgrade to 3g. The applications range from games to reference information to social networking and pretty much everything else you can think of.

Water Confirmed on Mars - (STE)

NASA has confirmed that tests conducted by the Phoenix Mars Lander in June prove that water exists on Mars. The presensce of water, a crucial and believed to be necessary element for life, means that there is a legitimate possibility that life (even in the form of microbes) has existed, exists or has the potential to exist on Mars.

More Economic Sinking - (BF)

As if there wasn't already enough bad news on the economy, today brings a trifecta of negative economic indicators.

First, GM posted a $15 BILLION loss for the second quarter. (In related news, Ford reported a 15% drop in U.S. sales and Toyota's U.S. sales declined by 12%)

Second, the U.S. unemployment rate rose to 5.7% in July - a four-year high.

Third and finally, bringing it all together, is what most of us already knew: although, the media doesn't seem quite ready to officially acknowledge it, - the U.S. economy is in a recession.