Nikola Tesla

It's his birthday. In the most unassuming neighborhood of Belgrade lies a gem of a museum filled with Nikola Tesla's discoveries. Reconstructing his experiments with electromagnetism must have been a difficult task, but the folks at this museum have done a job well done.

Sitting in the back of museum, is a golden urn the size of a bowling ball. How did they get his ashes in there? Much respect to Tesla for leaving us with a mystery from the grave.

Betty Cini lost her sheepdog, Angie, on the Fourth of July ten years ago. “We were outside and she was with us. Some of the neighbors shot off fireworks and she took off running and we never saw her again,” Cini said. “My beautiful little sheepdog, she was a great dog.”

Fireworks are a staple to most Fourth of July celebrations, but some dogs are sensitive to noises and can respond with fear to sounds such as thunder or fireworks. Loud, unfamiliar noises can cause panic, which can lead to serious injuries.

More dogs run away on Fourth of July than any other time of the year.

“Dogs are individuals and have individual reactions to noises,” said Dr. Julia Albright from the animal behavioral clinic at Cornell University. “Some dogs seem completely unaffected, whereas others, the slightest pin drop sends them into a tail spin.”

The anxiety caused by fireworks is acutely physical. Several studies have indicated that dogs may respond mildly to loud noises with symptoms like excessive panting, barking, drooling and trembling. More severe responses include destroying drywall, damaging windows, and other destructive ways to find routes of escape.

“My dog is especially sensitive to fireworks,” said dog owner, Ashley Gerrison, 27, a sales associate from San Francisco. “He gets really clingy and this is even when the fireworks are from miles down the road.”

According to animal behavioral experts, dogs can hear ten times better than humans. However, anxiety doesn’t have to be caused by loud noises. “I once treated a dog for thunderstorm and noise phobia who had never shown anxiety until a tree fell on the family house during a storm,” said Dr. Albright.

Dr. Ilana Reisner, assistant professor of behavioral medicine, at The University of Pennsylvania’s School of Veterinary Medicine Dogs said that some dogs appear to develop a worsening fear over time that eventually is characterized as a phobia.

A study of thirty dogs that showed signs of fear in response to fireworks came out of Animal Behaviour, Cognition and Welfare Group, University of Lincoln in England. G. Sheppard, One of the leading researchers in the study wanted to see if an appealing dog pheromone would alleviate their fear of loud noises. The owners said that their dogs showed significant improvements in most behavioral signs of fear. Although this is an effective way of dealing with fear, the FDA has not approved it for sale in the United States.

There are some precautions owners can follow to keep dogs safe. “Having a good solid fence at least five feet tall will decrease the probability of the dog escaping during a panic attack,” said Dr. Albright. “As veterinary behaviorists, we use medications and behavior modification to decrease noise and thunderstorm phobia.”

"Together with the right precautions and treatment," Dr. Albright said, “the dogs will learn how to stay in the situation and not let anxiety overtake them."

The Mad Ones

I've been away the last two weekends and now I could use some me time. I find little can be as fulfilling as getting lost in a new book. With school and work, late hours offer prime reading time. I read for an escape, relishing the stories of others; the life of revolutionary mobsters living in Brooklyn is my new fit.

The Mad Ones explores low level mafiosos the Gallo brothers serving their Don while being inspired by the counterculture of Greenwich Village.

Here's a clip of the author Tom Folsom:

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Left-handed people have long put up with the challenges presented by a right-handed world, but now a new study has found that left-handed people die younger than their right-handed counterparts.

Researchers from California States University and the University of British Columbia found that right-handed females live six years longer and right-handed males live 11 years longer than left-handed people.

“The results are striking in their magnitude,” said Diane Halpern, a psychology professor at California State University at San Bernardino who was one of the principal researchers.

The study is the first trial large enough to accurately assess why there are fewer left-handed people among the elderly population than right-handed. The research also concluded that left-handed people were four times more likely to die from injuries while driving than right-handers and six times more likely to die from accidents.

“Almost all engineering is geared to the right hand and right foot,” Halpern said. “There are many more car and other accidents among left-handers because of their environment.”

Peg Simmons, 29, a graduate student in English at New York University said, “These are important studies to have out because it might actually make automotive companies make cars more user friendly for left-handers. We will see how the study changes anything.”

For the trial, Diane Halpern and Stanley Coren, a researcher at the University of British Columbia, looked at death certificates of 987 people in two Southern California counties. Relatives of the deceased were queried by mail about the subjects’ dominant hand.

“We knew for years that there weren’t as many old left-handers,” Halpern said. “Researchers thought that was because in the early years of the century, most people born left-handed were forced to change to their right hands. So we thought we were looking at old people who used to be left-handed, but we weren’t. The truth was that there simply weren’t many left-handers left alive, compared to right-handers.”

The study was conducted last year and appears in last Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.

"Some of my best friends are left-handed,” Although previous left-handed studies have been conducted on whether there was a gene that determined what hand a baby would be born with, the results of these studies have produced mixed results. “It’s important that mothers of left-handed children not be alarmed and not try to change which hand a child uses,” she said, “There are many, many old left-handed people.”

For some, being left-handed isn’t a problem. Josh Freeland, 28, a left-handed trader from New York City said “Outside of not being able to find left-handed baseball gloves and having to reverse notebooks around, I can't think of too many problems that I've encountered.”

Left-handed women die around age 72; right-handed women die around age 78. Left-handed men die about age 62, right-handed men die about age 73. Halpern said her study should be interpreted cautiously. “It should not, of course, be used to predict the life span of any one individual. It does not take into account the fitness of any individual.”

“Being a lefty really does not worry me. I eat right, exercise, and I am an alert driver,” said Simon Rodriquez, 28, a San Francisco based freelance writer, “There are far worse things to be than left handed. I’m glad that’s all that is wrong with me.”

Future of journalism relies on psychic help

TMZ posted that Michael Jackson was dead six minutes before the coroner declared his death. I don't know how they did it (wire tapping at UCLA medical or maybe an office psychic). Who knew entertainment websites would be the place to turn for breaking news. I am assured that my guilty pleasure of reading tabloids will be very important to my career, life and future happiness.

So what does this say about receiving breaking news through the internet?

TMZ did not identify their source. However, their speediness played a part in the athletic game of who gets the news out first (good work in delivering factual gossip). Especially when the legit news sites like CNN, BBC, NY Times were bombarded with hits and google thought they were being attacked by a virus, (one that can do the moonwalk, that is). TMZ managed to grab the news first, the best in the game, they win.

Hopefully future happiness is still in the cards for those of us who read tabloids.

Jobs lost in journalism are on the rise in the US, but enrollment in journalism schools are soaring according to Angelia Herrin, professor of journalism at Harvard. Many question this phenomenon, with readership down in print journalism and massive lay-offs in the newsroom; classrooms are still full of optimistic students ready to learn on their first day.

One of those students would be Maria Karpenko, 22, from Waterloo Canada. Karpenko isn’t discouraged when she hears that journalism is in bad shape. “My viewpoint is that journalism is at a standstill”, she said. “There is a new wave of journalism evolving from a new type of stories.”

Karpenko would like to have a master’s degree in journalism to complement her recently completed bachelor’s of science degree from the University of Waterloo. “I want to bridge the gap of the sciences to the general public,” she said. “I want to stay connected with science, but don’t want to spend six years on a PhD.” Karpenko would like to become a health or medical journalist.

Karpenko is no stranger to the world of journalism. She spent much of her teenage years
helping out in her family’s own art publication called Lace Express magazine. “I worked as a secretary,” she said.

Karpenko was born in Moscow and lived there for six years then moved to Niedersachsen, Germany for eight years and then to Canada where she spent most of her life. She speaks three languages and hopes that will help with her career in journalism.

“I like the idea that at this program, I can start working on my degree right away,” she said. “I don’t have to wait to apply by December and start in a year’s time.”

Interested in new technology and social media, Karpenko believes that blogging, Twitter, and Facebook are important ways for her to keep track of all the different changes in journalism in the social networking world.

Karpenko would like to have her own online magazine one day. “I recently got my own blog, but haven’t written anything on it yet.” she smirks and continues, “I am starting small.”

Ray Bradbury

One of my literary heroes is still kicking. Click here to read more.