How Birds Can Down a Jet Airplane
More than 200 people have been killed worldwide as a result of wildlife strikes with aircraft since 1988, according to Bird Strike Committee USA, and more than 5,000 bird strikes were reported by the U.S. Air Force in 2007. Bird strikes, or the collision of an aircraft with an airborne bird, tend to happen when aircraft are close to the ground, which means just before landing or after take-off, when jet engines are turning at top speeds. The incidents are serious particularly when the birds, usually gulls, raptors and geese, are sucked into a jet engine and strike an engine fan blade. That impact displaces the blade such that it strikes another blade and a cascade can occur, resulting in engine failure.
Maybe LaGuardia needs a bird scaring dog, like Sky.

God and Science: An Inner Conflict
God and science are inherently at odds, or so goes the story with roots that reach back nearly 400 years to the Inquisition’s trial of Galileo on suspicion of heresy… But what is the source of this seeming “irreconcilable difference” – are we hard-wired for it, or is it tenacious cultural baggage?

Science closing in on cloak of invisibility
Researchers at Duke University, who developed a material that can “cloak” an item from detection by microwaves, report that they have expanded the number of wavelengths they can block. In 2006 the team reported they had developed so-called metamaterials that could deflect microwaves around a three-dimensional object, essentially making it invisible to the waves. The system works like a mirage, where heat causes the bending of light rays and cloaks the road ahead behind an image of the sky.

Structural Defects Introduced Into Carbon Nanotubes Could Lead The Way To Carbon Nanotube Circuits
The finding could lead to nanoscale circuits that enable more compact and more powerful computers made of carbon nanotube materials that outperform silicon.

Alcohol Exposure In The Womb Affects ‘Teenage’ Booze Behavior
Rats whose mothers were fed alcohol during pregnancy are more attracted to the smell of liquor during puberty.

Early Childhood Diet May Influence Future Health
If you have trouble keeping weight off and you’re wondering why – the surprising answer may well be the cheeseburgers you ate – when you were a toddler.

Education Professor Dispels Myths About Gifted Children
Though not often recognized as “special needs” students, gifted children require just as much attention and educational resources to thrive in school as do other students whose physical, behavioral, emotional or learning needs require special accommodations.

Antacids Are Best First Choice for Indigestion
Study finds they’re a bit cheaper than more potent drugs like PPIs.

Invisible Surgery: Appendix Removed Through Patient’s Vagina
Breaking new ground in what many surgeons consider the next frontier in minimally invasive surgery, [a surgeon] successfully performed an appendectomy with no abdominal incision. The appendix was removed through a small incision in the patient’s vagina.

Surgical Safety Checklist Drops Deaths And Complications By More Than A Third
A collection of hospitals in eight cities around the globe has successfully demonstrated that the use of a simple surgical checklist during major operations can lower the incidence of deaths and complications by more than one third.

Sleep Apnea Seems to Wear Down the Brain 
Repeated blood flow changes may be at the root of higher stroke risk, study says

More Americans Urged to Get Cancer Screenings
Rates hover around 50 percent, despite proven benefits, report says

Family Docs Do Colonoscopies Safely
Study found no more complications than when specialists perform screening test.

Midlife Coffee And Tea Drinking May Protect Against Late-life Dementia
The study found that coffee drinkers at midlife had lower risk for dementia and AD later in life compared to those drinking no or only little coffee.

But,
High Caffeine Intake Linked To Hallucination Proneness
‘High caffeine users’ – those who consumed more than the equivalent of seven cups of instant coffee a day – were three times more likely to have heard a person’s voice when there was no one there compared with ‘low caffeine users’ who consumed less than the equivalent of one cup of instant coffee a day.

Moderate alcohol consumption may help seniors keep disabilities at bay
[I]f you’re a senior in good health, light to moderate consumption of alcohol may also help prevent the development of physical disability.
Notice the adjectives “light” and “moderate”.  If you’re an alcoholic, who can’t keep your drinking light or moderate, it’s still better not to drink at all.

Archeologist Uncovers Evidence Of Ancient Chemical Warfare
A researcher from the University of Leicester has identified what looks to be the oldest archaeological evidence for chemical warfare — from Roman times.

Genetic Variation Cues Social Anxiety In Monkeys And Humans
A genetic variation involving the brain chemical serotonin has been found to shape the social behavior of rhesus macaque monkeys, which could provide researchers with a new model for studying autism, social anxiety and schizophrenia. Humans and macaques are the only members of the primate family to have this particular genetic trait.

Life is tweet: first bird had hearing like an emu’s
PARIS (AFP) – Archaeopteryx, the first known bird, had a hearing range similar to the modern-day emu’s, according to a new study that boosts the avian claims of this descendant of the dinosaurs.

Bird Strikes Could Threaten Space Shuttles, Too
The reported crash of a passenger jet in New York’s Hudson River after a bird strike is a reminder of NASA’s preparations to safeguard its space shuttle fleet against the same threat.

Martian methane belch: From rocks or microbes?
WASHINGTON – A surprising and mysterious belch of methane gas on Mars hints at possible microbial life underground, but also could come from changes in rocks, a new NASA study found. The presence of methane on Mars could be significant because by far most of the gas on Earth is a byproduct of life — from animal digestion and decaying plants and animals.

Exoplanet Atmospheres Detected From Earth
Two independent groups have simultaneously made the first-ever ground-based detection of extrasolar planets thermal emissions. Until now, virtually everything known about atmospheres of planets orbiting other stars in the Milky Way has come from space-based observations.