I remember a friend asking me years ago as we were riding down the boulevard, “Does it seem like there are way more females than males on the roads these days?” It may have sounded like a strange observation, but it wasn’t after all. I’ve never forgotten that comment. Are there less males in the world today than there used to be? Is there scientific evidence to support this?

There are growing concerns about Bisphenol A, a chemical used to manufacture hard plastic containers, such as baby bottles, reusable plastic cups, and the lining of metal food and beverage cans, including canned liquid infant formula.

Bisphenol A has been used to make plastic for more than 50 years. Its most common form is used in polycarbonate plastics, which include: baby and water bottles, sports equipment, medical and dental devices, dental fillings and sealants, eyeglass lenses, CDs and DVDs, and household electronics.

Are synthetic chemicals starting to have an effect on male hormone development? Over 90,000 compounds are being made and most of them have never been tested. A vast amount of these chemicals are far more damaging to boys than girls, the experts are reporting.

Are the boys disappearing?

Red moon rising occurred on June 15, 2011, and was a relatively uncommon event. A central lunar eclipse – that’s where part of the moon passes through the center of the Earth’s shadow. Central lunar eclipses are the darkest eclipses and they are relatively rare.

The last time a lunar eclipse was closer to the center of the earth’s shadow was on July 16, 2000. The next central total lunar eclipse will be on – July 27, 2018.

The red moon rising was visible in South America, Africa, Europe, and Asia. In western Asia, Australia and the Philippines, the lunar eclipse was visible just before sunrise.

What was as equally as rare, was the internet viewership shared by thousands. The blogosphere was lighted up itself by hits of adorers around the globe. This was a rare eclipse itself.

The Sky Watchers Association of North Bengal (SWAN) India sent an invitation to share the joy of the observation from Siliguri, West Bengal, India on June 15, 2011. The day turned out to be a complete success.

But there were challenges right from the start. The internet connection was a little fractured at times in the beginning. The clouds also presented to be a hindrance on multiple instances. But these obstacles were no match for the SWAN team, with the aid of mother nature, obviously.

At the peak of viewership, there were as many as 11,000 plus viewers savoring the occasion. Many of the the eyewitnesses got a glimpse of a total lunar eclipse in its entirety for the first time. The SWAN members were very courteous and displayed much professionalism. Thank you very much for hosting the adventure.  We enjoyed the discussion, the music, and the wonderful camaraderie. What a splendid function!

These type of brief time periods where huge crowds can participate can only be possible with the  power of the internet. It’s history in the making when this type of opportunity arises.

The Lunar Eclipse, June 15, 2011 was even hosted by Google on YouTube. But many of channel users afterwards were clearly upset that there wasn’t a replay of the event. Oops!

A big thank you to all for clicking on this website, posting the comments,  and sharing this occasion together with us. Please join the conversation on Twitter — @ki4kqd, and you will gain a follower as well.

If you have a rare photo of nature and you would like to have it posted,  please send it to us via Twitter or Twitpic, or give a suggestion in a comment. Again, thanks to all around the world for the participation — de Roger.

Photograph credit from _big_mouth _ .  Some rights reserved.

Video discontinued. You can catch the spectacular video on the RTVE website. See details below…

Un eclipse tiñe la Luna de rojo – ver video rtve.es

* Ha sido el eclipse lunar más largo desde el año 2000

* La Luna se ha ‘ruborizado’ por la incidencia de los rayos en la atmósfera

Live Webcasts:
1. SWAN India - New Delhi, India.
2. AstronomyLive  -  This one seems to be active — Channel 2.
3. Sky-live.tv  - In Madrid, Spain. Spanish language.
4. Astronation  – In Germany. Planning a free live broadcast of the celestial event from about 21:30 to about 0:00. Transmitter site is the radome, with 950m above sea level the highest point in Hesse. German language.

***** FULL SCREEN  – Opens in full screen. From SWAN India.

Date: June 15, 2011

Time: (Credit NASA)
Penumbral Eclipse Begins: 17:24:34 UT  / EDT 13:24
Partial Eclipse Begins: 18:22:56 UT  /  EDT 14:22
Total Eclipse Begins: 19:22:30 UT  /  EDT 15:22
Greatest Eclipse: 20:12:37 UT  /  EDT 16:12
Total Eclipse Ends: 21:02:42 UT  /  EDT 17:02
Partial Eclipse Ends: 22:02:15 UT  /  EDT 18:02
Penumbral Eclipse Ends: 23:00:45 UT /  EDT 19:00

Visibility: (Wikipedia – A world map to show where visible)
It will be visible completely over Africa, and Central Asia, visible rising over South America, western Africa, and Europe, and setting over eastern Asia. In western Asia, Australia and the Philippines, the lunar eclipse will be visible just before sunrise. The eclipse will not be visible in the United States or Canada.

Future:
Next total lunar eclipse on December 10, 2011.

LIVE VIDEO

Also found on IQ Signals …

Italian astronaut Paolo Nespoli took this stunning photo of the shuttle Endeavour as he left the ISS in the Soyuz. The first ever of a shuttle docked with the International Space Station. An awesome photo. More at NASA.  Here’s Nespoli @ Flickr.

Newly released portraits show the International Space Station together with the space shuttle, the vehicle that helped build the complex during the last decade. The pictures are the first taken of a shuttle docked to the station from the perspective of a Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

On May 23, the Soyuz was carrying Russian cosmonaut Dmitry Kondratyev, NASA astronaut Cady Coleman and European Space Agency astronaut Paolo Nespoli back to Earth. Once their vehicle was about 600 feet from the station, Mission Control Moscow, outside the Russian capital, commanded the orbiting laboratory to rotate 130 degrees. This move allowed Nespoli to capture digital photographs and high definition video of shuttle Endeavour docked to the station.

Credit: NASA

The social networking sight Facebook has attained popularity status that most web developers only dream about. Facebook is incredibly popular with women. What are the reasons for this?

A new study published in a journal (Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking) from the University at Buffalo by researcher Michael A. Stefanone examined the issue further. Stefone and his associates studied the behavior of men and especially women using social networks.

What Dr. Stefone claims is that men and women base their self worth for different reasons. While men base theirs on self achievement, women base theirs on physical appearance particularly. What do you base your self worth on?

The study at UB found out that were gender differences in terms of attention seeking found online as well as other factors. One thing that is probably no surprise is that women are much more sociable than men and seek attention more often. Here are a few things discovered in the study:

1. Women spend more time online.
2. Women have larger social networks.
3. Women share photos 5 times more than men.
4. Women put much more emphasis of self worth on physical appearance.
5. Women are more prone to compete for attention.
6. Women use Facebook as way of boosting the self ego.
7. Women identify with their self image more than men.

So is stands to reason that Facebook is dominated by the female gender. Females use networks to make social connections and men use networks to increase their status and seek information.

Women use Facebook to make themselves look their best. Everyone wants to exhibit a positive view to the public. Public image is very important to most of us. Face it.

Here are some more interesting stats regarding women and Facebook if you’re interested.

The weather appears to be cooperating in Florida and the landing should take place approximately around noon today. The mission is the 39th and final flight of Discovery and the 133rd flight of the Space Shuttle program.

The crew: Commander Steven Lindsey, Pilot Eric Boe and Mission Specialists Alvin Drew, Michael Barratt, Steve Bowen and Nicole Stott. Bowen replaced astronaut Tim Kopra, who was injured in a bicycle accident in January.

NASA LIVE VIDEO: NASA TV

The BBC posted a video of the spectacular film caught by Norwegian photographer, Eirik Evjen. However, Eirik was a bit annoyed that there wasn’t a link added back to his page. Here is the link: Eirik Evjen. Eirik says he was born and raised in Oslo, Norway. Be sure to take a look at his work.

Eirik Evjen describes the shoot in his own words:

“Just to clear up the story a bit. I did not sit on the mountain for 8 hours as NRKnews reporter said. But I did pack the camera and tripod in with my jacket, I did this so the batteries in my camera had a better chance to survive for 8 hours, and they did! A sacrifice for the timelapse, it was freezing getting down from the mountain without much clothes. If I knew that it would be such a great view of Northern Lights I would have made the clip a bit longer, or more pictures each minute. This version has 2 pictures each minute, the timelapse contains around 780 single shots.”

Let’s begin by going back to the year of 1925 in the United States. A court case titled The State of Tennessee v. Scopes. More commonly known as the Scopes Monkey Trial.

John Scopes was a high school biology teacher in Dayton, Tennessee. Scopes’ intention was to create publicity by teaching evolution in the classroom. This was prohibited by another Tennessee law, called the Butler Act. The Butler Act was enstated more or less to prevent evolution from being taught in public schools.

On May 18, 1967, the Butler Act was overturned in court, making it no longer valid. The reasoning was that teaching evolution was an act of free speech. Not being allowed to teach it would violate the first amendment.

Getting back to the Scope trial. Scopes was found guilty, but never had to suffer for it whatsoever. Scopes did get his wish; he created much publicity. Science versus religion arguments surface to this present moment.

Creationism was not allowed to be taught in the 1970′s and 1980′s, but a modified version was later allowed. In 2005, intelligent design was disallowed. The Kitzmiller v. Dover case prohibited the teaching of intelligent design. Intelligent design was not considered to be a science, therefore it could not be taught.

Here is where the plot really gets interesting. According to an article which can be viewed on Nature.com, a great majority of teachers would not advocate the teaching of evolutionism.

Although the the state curricula strongly encourages evolutionism, teachers are quite uneasy to touch the idea of evolution. This discovery is very much a surprise. One representative replied: “It’s like a math teacher not believing in algebra.”

Eric Plutzer, from Pennsylvania State University, along with Michael Berkman, also of Pennsylvania State University, conducted the study. The two discovered that at least 60% of teachers were teaching a watered down version of evolution in the class.

In reality, the state content had no bearing on how the teachers taught science in the classroom. So the idea is that the students only know evolution on the tests, and they really didn’t have to believe it.

Creationism may not be dominant in the classroom, but it has proved very difficult to totally erase the controversial concept.

Adding and subtracting integers for the beginner seems very complicated at first glance. It just takes a little theory along with some good procedure. For starters, think opposite.

Adding With Different Signs

When we add two integers, we will subtract the two numbers and use the sign which number has the greatest amount.

Example:  (+3) + (-7)
We subtract, (7)  – (3).  
Then we ask ourself, which number is largest (+3 or -7)?
Obviously (-7)  is the largest number of the two.  Therefore, our answer will have a negative sign.
Answer is (-4)

Example: (-2) + (+8)
Same procedure here. 8 -  2  = 6. Look back at the problem. +8 was the larger number. So, the answer will be +6, or simply 6.

Example: (+6) + (-6)
Answer is 0

Subtracting With Different Signs

We will use a slightly different formula for subtraction, but we still do opposite. When we subtract integers, we always change the sign for the second number. Then we just add the numbers. (That’s opposite!)

Example: (-24) – (+9)
Okay, first thing we do is change the sign of the second number, which will be (-9). Then we add, (-24) + (-9)
Answer is (-33)

Example: (+4) – (-3)
This would become (+4) + (+3)
Answer is +7

Adding And Subtracting With Alike Signs

One last simple rule. Obviously, whether we add or subtract numbers with alike signs, we use the common sign.

Example: (+5) + (+3)
Answer is (+8)

Example: (-5) + (-2)
Answer is  (-7)

Example: (-7) – (-2)
Answer is  (-5)