Blog Heap of Links for the day 8 February 2009

At the National Prayer Breakfast at the Washington Hilton Hotel this morning, President Obama caught pro-life advocates off guard when he said God wouldn't condone taking the life of an innocent human being. Obama spoke of the need for people of all rel

RealD Cinema is a digital stereoscopic projection technology made and sold by RealD Inc. It is currently the most widely used technology for watching 3-D films in theatres. Samsung will be using RealD technology in its upcoming HDTVs.

The Board of Medicine revoked the license of a Florida doctor on Friday accused of medical malpractice in a botched abortion in which a live baby was delivered, but ended up dead in a cardboard box.... According to the complaint, she gave birth at a Hialeah clinic after waiting hours for Renelique to arrive. The complaint said one of the clinic owners put the baby in a bag that was thrown away. Police found the infant's decomposing remains a week later. A medical examiner determined the cause of death was extreme prematurity...

The Coma Galaxy Cluster, in the northern constellation of Coma Berenices, the hair of Queen Berenice, is one of the closest very rich collections of galaxies in the nearby Universe. The cluster, also known as Abell 1656, is about 320 million light-years from Earth and contains more than 1000 members. ... NGC 4921 is one of the rare spirals in Coma, and a rather unusual one — it is an example of an "anaemic spiral" where the normal vigorous star formation that creates a spiral galaxy's familiar bright arms is much less intense. As a result there is just a delicate swirl of dust in a ring around the galaxy, accompanied by some bright young blue stars that are clearly separated out by Hubble's sharp vision....

Beautiful photo of double spiral galaxy

/>Drug Enforcement Administration agents this week raided four medical marijuana shops in California, contrary to President Obama's campaign promises to stop the raids. The White House said it expects those kinds of raids to end once Mr. Obama nominates someone to take charge of DEA, which is still run by Bush administration holdovers. [Yeah, sure.]

Dr. Sally Kristen Ride (born May 26, 1951) is an American physicist and a former NASA astronaut. Ride joined NASA in 1978, and in 1983 became the first American woman—and then-youngest American—to enter space. In 1987 she left NASA to work at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Arms Control.

Mayor Richard Daley said today Chicago has compiled a wish list of "shovel-ready projects" to spend federal economic stimulus funds on should Congress approve a plan. Unlike hundreds of other cities, however, Daley said Chicago won't make its list public.

1 in 200 of our human genes can be inactivated with no detectable effect on our health. A study by Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute scientists raises new questions about the effects of gene loss on our wellbeing and evolution. [Don't be so sure....]

'Malaria is spread by mosquitoes,' the Microsoft founder yelled at a well-heeled crowd at a technology conference in California. 'I brought some,' he added. 'Here, I'll let them roam around — there is no reason only poor people should be infected.'