Not content with sticking to Earth and the moon, Google is bringing its mapping technology to our nearest planetary neighbor: Mars. In commemoration of Percival Lowell’s birthday, Google joined up with NASA to build Google Mars using the most scientific maps of the planet.
Originally from BetaNews.Com
By Alice Hill
RealTechNews
You know that the second someone claims to have the biggest image, next week there will be one twice as big. But at least for today, here is the largest image available online. It’s a whopping 86400 x 43200 pixels, RGB, 10.7GB uncompressed TIFF file. It comes from NASA and is a shot […]
Originally from Alice Hill’s Real Tech News – Independent Tech
I almost threw up when I read this:
Parents can sue a doctor if a genetic screening misses a severe or fatal condition that would have caused them to seek an abortion, a divided state Supreme Court ruled Friday.
The 4-3 decision limited such lawsuits to costs associated with a pregnancy and the birth of the child, saying such parents could not sue for pain-and-suffering damages or repayment of the costs of raising a disabled child.
The decision was a partial victory for a Kentucky couple who sued a Cincinnati obstetrics practice and hospital that provided genetic counseling and told them their fetus did not have a genetic disorder that the mother carried. The 8-year-old boy born in 1997 has the disorder and can’t speak or crawl.
The finding overruled a lower-court decision that Richard and Helen Schirmer could sue for the costs of raising their disabled son.
Justice Maureen O’Connor, writing for the majority, noted that the Schirmers had indicated they would have aborted the child if they had received the correct diagnosis. As a result, she said they could not sue for costs above those of raising a child without a disability, since that was never a possibility.
they have no shame in publicly stating that they wish they had killed their son before he was born because he’s inconvenient, imperfect, and expensive, but this mother also has the same disorder.
Someday, they too, just like the rest of us, will become inconvenient, imperfect, and expensive. How would they feel if their lives were treated as cavalierly?
Originally posted by Kim Priestap from Wizbang
David Pescovitz:
This photo appeared in the Bryan-College Station Eagle newspaper on Thursday. Click the image for a bigger version and look closely. Apparently the newspaper claims it’s an “unfortunate optical illusion.”
Link (Thanks, Carlo Longino!)
Originally posted by David Pescovitz from Boing Boing
When To Obey the Law Is To Risk Your Own Life.
The story is this. A group of college students got together and decided to hold I-285 traffic to the posted speed limit. (I-285 makes a complete circle around Atlanta.) The Atlanta Journal quotes a spokesman for the DOT as saying that if the students weren’t blocking emergency vehicles and were going the speed limit, “they didn’t do a thing wrong.†He added, “In Atlanta… we expect the people going 75 to move over so the people going 95 can have the right of way.â€
I’m very familiar with I-285, having travelled it thousands of times. If you do 55, you are risking your life. If you do what traffic is doing, you are subject to a ticket. So what’s a person to do? This will generate some great discussion!