GIVE PLUTO A BREAK!

Astronomers say Pluto is not a planet

Leading astronomers declared Thursday that Pluto is no longer a planet under historic new guidelines that downsize the solar system from nine planets to eight.

After a tumultuous week of clashing over the essence of the cosmos, the International Astronomical Union stripped Pluto of the planetary status it has held since its discovery in 1930. The new definition of what is — and isn't — a planet fills a centuries-old black hole for scientists who have labored since Copernicus without one.

Although astronomers applauded after the vote, Jocelyn Bell Burnell — a specialist in neutron stars from Northern Ireland who oversaw the proceedings — urged those who might be "quite disappointed" to look on the bright side.

"It could be argued that we are creating an umbrella called 'planet' under which the dwarf planets exist," she said, drawing laughter by waving a stuffed Pluto of Walt Disney fame beneath a real umbrella.

The decision by the prestigious international group spells out the basic tests that celestial objects will have to meet before they can be considered for admission to the elite cosmic club.

For now, membership will be restricted to the eight "classical" planets in the solar system: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.

Much-maligned Pluto doesn't make the grade under the new rules for a planet: "a celestial body that is in orbit around the sun, has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a ... nearly round shape, and has cleared the neighborhood around its orbit."

Pluto is automatically disqualified because its oblong orbit overlaps with Neptune's.
Instead, it will be reclassified in a new category of "dwarf planets," similar to what long have been termed "minor planets." The definition also lays out a third class of lesser objects that orbit the sun — "small solar system bodies," a term that will apply to numerous asteroids, comets and other natural satellites.

It was unclear how Pluto's demotion might affect the mission of NASA's New Horizons spacecraft, which earlier this year began a 9 1/2-year journey to the oddball object to unearth more of its secrets.

The decision at a conference of 2,500 astronomers from 75 countries was a dramatic shift from just a week ago, when the group's leaders floated a proposal that would have reaffirmed Pluto's planetary status and made planets of its largest moon and two other objects.

That plan proved highly unpopular, splitting astronomers into factions and triggering days of sometimes combative debate that led to Pluto's undoing.

Now, two of the objects that at one point were cruising toward possible full-fledged planethood will join Pluto as dwarfs: the asteroid Ceres, which was a planet in the 1800s before it got demoted, and 2003 UB313, an icy object slightly larger than Pluto whose discoverer, Michael Brown of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena has nicknamed Xena.

Charon, the largest of Pluto's three moons, is no longer under consideration for any special designation.

Man trapped waist-deep in chocolate

Fri Aug 18, 9:53 AM ET

It might sound like a chocoholic's dream, but stepping into a vat of chocolate became a two-hour nightmare for a 21-year-old man Friday morning.

The man, an employee of a Kenosha company that supplies chocolate ingredients, told police he got into the tank at Debelis Corp. to unplug it and became trapped waist-deep in the chocolate.

"It was pretty thick. It was virtually like quicksand," said Police Capt. Randy Berner.

Co-workers, police and firefighters tried to free the man but couldn't get him loose until the chocolate was thinned out. Berner said the worker was taken to a hospital for treatment of minor injuries.

What do you guys think about this one?

U r sckd: worker fired by text message

A company has defended its decision to sack one of its staff by text message, claiming it was keeping in touch with youth culture.

Katy Tanner, a 21-year-old sales assistant, received the message while she was off work with a migraine, the South Wales Echo newspaper said Friday.

The text message said: "We will not require your services anymore...Thank you for your time with us."

"I don't think it's right to just text someone. At least they should have talked to me face to face," Tanner said.

"You're not allowed to text in sick, you have to phone. The fact that they texted me is a bit of double standards."

Several senior staff members at Blue Banana, a body-piercing and jewellery shop based in Cardiff, defended the decision.

But company director Jon Taylor added that an internal investigation was underway to see if "the ultimate action was ideal".

The retailer claims it tried to reach Tanner directly "five or six times" and passed on a message through her boyfriend before the text was sent. And store director Ian Besbie added that the dismissal method was fair because texting was a part of "youth culture".

"We are a youth business and our staff are all part of the youth culture that uses SMS (text) messaging as a major means of communication," he said. The company employs about 120 people in Britain, many of them aged under 21.

N.H. woman bakes cookies on dashboard


Blistering heat was just what Sandi Fontaine needed to bake cookies for her co-workers — on the dash of her Toyota Rav4.

With temperatures soaring Wednesday, Fontaine placed two trays of cookie dough on the dashboard, shut the doors and retreated inside to her air conditioned office.

"My husband wanted me to run some errands this morning," said Fontaine, who works at Baldwin and Clarke Corporate Finance. "I said, 'I can't. I'm baking cookies.'"

Fontaine first tested her dashboard oven three years ago. She said anyone can do it; the only requirement is for the outside temperature to be at least 95 degrees, so it will rise to about 200 degrees in the car. Temperatures in the area reached the mid to upper 90s on Wednesday.

"Mrs. Fields has nothing on Sandi," co-worker Brian Champigny said of the cookie company.
Though Thursday was supposed to be cooler, Fontaine said she'll still enjoy the benefits of her culinary effort.

"When you open the door to that car," she said, "it's like, oh my God. It's a wonderful smell."
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Ok this new website is just a little freaky.......


"Welcome...you've got death..."
By Belinda Goldsmith
Reuters

A social networking Web site for Americans aged 50-plus went live on Monday -- complete with an online obituary database that sends out alerts when someone you may know dies and that plans to set up a do-it-yourself funeral service.

The founder of Internet job site Monster.com, Jeff Taylor, launched Eons.com, a similar site to the popular online teen hang-outs MySpace or Facebook for the 50-plus crowd.

Instead of career and school sections, Eons.com has interactive games to build brain strength, news on entertainment and hobbies for older people, a personalized longevity calculator and tips to live longer.

It also has a nationwide database of obituaries dating back to the 1930s to which people can add photos and comments.

"The death business is growing," Taylor told Reuters, offering figures showing the number of deaths in the United States rose to 2.4 million in 2005 from 2.2 million in 2000, and was projected to rise to 4.1 million by 2040.

In addition to adding photos and videos to obituaries, members of Eons.com can sign up to receive an alert when someone from a particular area dies or in response to pre-defined keywords such as a company or school name.

This is similar to e-mail services offered by various other Web sites that alert people when a friend or colleague signs onto a certain site.

"Many people no longer live where they grew up so the idea of a rich story about someone's life in a local newspaper is often lost," said Taylor, who sees online obituaries replacing the traditional death announcements in newspapers.

He said baby boomers, the 77 million Americans born between 1946 and 1964, also wanted to have a greater input into their own funerals. This prompted Eons.com to look into a service where people could plan for their favorite songs to be played at their funeral and where friends and family can go afterward for food and drink.

But Taylor, who quit Monster.com last year, said Eons.com's main focus was not death but celebrating turning the Big 5-0 and living the grandest life possible.
Taylor, who is only 45, said he saw the need for Eons.com, for about 44 million of the 86 million
Americans aged over 50 are online, but only a few use social networking sites.
This is also a wealthy group, controlling about 67 percent of the nation's wealth -- and with plenty of time ahead.

"We now live about 20 years longer than our grandparents," said Taylor. "These are people who want to spend money to save time rather then spend their time trying to save money."