Dowbrigade

One astronomer compared it to the fate of the faithful
dog in the movie "Old Yeller." On Thursday, astronomers will
discuss when and how NASA
should put down one of its and astronomy’s most spectacular successes,
the Hubble Space Telescope.

NASA
has long planned to end Hubble’s spectacular run and bring it down
in 2010. Now some are saying its life can be extended.

Full disclosure: I bawled like a baby the first time I saw “Old Yeller”…

from
the New York Times

Rare is the academic field in which colleagues on opposite sides of
a debate — people with international reputations — dismiss the very
foundations of one another’s work. One such field, according to Susan Clancy
of the Harvard Psychology Department, is the area of false or repressed
memory.

What the two sides disagree on is whether painful memories of traumatic
events can actually be repressed — completely forgotten — and then ”recovered”
years later in therapy. Many clinicians say yes: it is how we instinctively
protect ourselves from childhood recollections that would otherwise be
too dire to bear. Most cognitive psychologists say no: real trauma is almost
never forgotten; full-blown, traumatic memories dredged up decades later
through hypnosis are almost invariably false.

The discussion has profound implications in fields as diverse as child abuse and alien abductions.

from the New York Times

Army rebels have seized a prestigious shopping and
hotel complex in the Philippines capital, ringing it with what appear
to be explosives. They are protesting corruption within the government
of President Gloria Arroyo, and claim that several recent terrorist attacks
in the Phillipines were staged by the government to extort military aid from
the US.

"We are not attempting to grab power – we are just trying to express
our grievances," Lieutenant Antonio Trillanes.

from the BBC…..developing

For centuries navigators have been searching for the legendary Northwest
Passage, a navigable connection between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
Scientists have recently speculated that global warming may soon make
this possible.  Now news that the long-sought passage may have been
found – by yellow rubber duckies!

A shipment of 29,000 plastic ducks destined
for bathtubs around the country fell
from
a cargo
ship
in the
Pacific
Ocean
in 1992.
After
making
it through the Bering Strait, scientists believe, the ducks were trapped
by slow-moving Arctic ice for several years before being recently freed
into the North Atlantic.

The company that owns the ducks is offering a reward for the flock’s
return. The First Years Inc., of Avon, will give anyone finding one of
the missing ducks in New England, Canada, or Iceland before the end of
the year a $100 US savings bond.

from
the Boston Globe

Thank you all for a wonderful trip yesterday.  Some of the photos
Andres took are at the bottom of my "Virtual
Tour of Harvard Square"
web page, and you can see yourselves as well on the "Statue
of the Three Lies" page here.  I will be posting some articles for you to
read here tomorrow, so keep an eye on this space.  See you all Monday.

The state recorded its first vehicle fatality involving
a moose this week, when a car struck the animal along the Massachusetts
Turnpike in Warren. Amber Ronzoni, 24, of Webster, was driving east when
her 2004 Acura crashed into a moose Wednesday at about 10 p.m.

Wednesday’s crash did not involve alcohol, drugs, or speed, police said.
The moose was standing in the passing lane of the turnpike. Ronzoni was
a well-liked English teacher at South High Community School in Worcester,
according to friends who gathered with her family yesterday. from the Boston
Globe