Venus journeys across the Sun Tuesday, next time in 2117

Cape Canaveral: It's a spectacle that won't repeat for another century - the sight of Venus slowly inching across the face of the sun.The silhouette of Venus will march across the face of the sun on Tuesday from the Western Hemisphere (Wednesday from the Eastern Hemisphere). Known as a transit of Venus, this won't happen again until 2117.Venus will appear as a small black dot gliding across the disk of the sun. As in a solar eclipse, do not stare directly at the sun; wear special protective glasses.

The entire transit, lasting 6 hours and 40 minutes, will be visible from the western Pacific, eastern Asia and eastern Australia.
Skywatchers in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Central America, and the northern part of South America will see the beginning of the show before the sun sets. Europe, western and central Asia, eastern Africa and western Australia will catch the tail end after sunrise. Those who don't want to leave their homes can follow live webcasts by NASA and various observatories.

You can damage your eyes by staring at the sun. People need to remember that as they turn to the skies to watch and keep in mind a few tips.
Wear special viewing glasses such as solar eclipse glasses. You can buy them online or at your local museum. Alternatively, you can go to a hardware store and get a pair of welder's glasses, but make sure it's number 14 or darker. Or make a pinhole projector with cardboard. Do not watch the transit with regular sunglasses.Peer through telescopes outfitted with special filters at viewing parties hosted by museums, observatories and astronomy clubs. Many will also have experts on hand who could talk about the history and significance of a Venus transit.

Tune in online. NASA, Slooh.com and the Exploratorium in San Francisco are among those that plan live webcasts.Reuters

Venus journeys across the Sun Tuesday, next time in 2117

Cape Canaveral: It's a spectacle that won't repeat for another century - the sight of Venus slowly inching across the face of the sun.The silhouette of Venus will march across the face of the sun on Tuesday from the Western Hemisphere (Wednesday from the Eastern Hemisphere). Known as a transit of Venus, this won't happen again until 2117.Venus will appear as a small black dot gliding across the disk of the sun. As in a solar eclipse, do not stare directly at the sun; wear special protective glasses.

The entire transit, lasting 6 hours and 40 minutes, will be visible from the western Pacific, eastern Asia and eastern Australia.
Skywatchers in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Central America, and the northern part of South America will see the beginning of the show before the sun sets. Europe, western and central Asia, eastern Africa and western Australia will catch the tail end after sunrise. Those who don't want to leave their homes can follow live webcasts by NASA and various observatories.

You can damage your eyes by staring at the sun. People need to remember that as they turn to the skies to watch and keep in mind a few tips.
Wear special viewing glasses such as solar eclipse glasses. You can buy them online or at your local museum. Alternatively, you can go to a hardware store and get a pair of welder's glasses, but make sure it's number 14 or darker. Or make a pinhole projector with cardboard. Do not watch the transit with regular sunglasses.Peer through telescopes outfitted with special filters at viewing parties hosted by museums, observatories and astronomy clubs. Many will also have experts on hand who could talk about the history and significance of a Venus transit.

Tune in online. NASA, Slooh.com and the Exploratorium in San Francisco are among those that plan live webcasts.Reuters

20 killed, 125 wounded in Iraq car bombing

Baghdad: At least 20 people were killed and 125 others wounded Monday in a suicide car bombing here in the Iraqi capital, Xinhua reported.The attack took place around 10.45 a.m. when a suicide bomber drove his explosives-laden car into the entrance of a Shia endowment office in Bab al-Mu'dham district, an interior ministry official said.

The powerful blast destroyed the building and damaged nearby houses, while many cars were left charred. A plume of black smoke was seen over the area.Security forces sealed off the scene, as ambulances, police and civilian cars evacuated the injured to nearby hospitals.

An official said the bombing was an attempt to create sectarian tensions.'There are agendas to divide the Iraqi people by stirring up tension between the Shia and Sunni endowment offices, as the attackers use the dispute over the al-Askari shrine in Samarra,' said Sami al-Massudi, deputy chief of the Shia endowment office.

The Shia office has been reportedly seeking to take over management of many Sunni mosques and properties, including the al-Askari shrine in Samarra, 110 km from Baghdad, which has the tombs of Ali al-Hadi and Hassan al-Askari, the 10th and 11th imams of the Shias.Sunnis in Samarra say the two imams are their ancestors and they have been running the shrine for over hundreds of years.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki condemned the attack.'We confirm that such heinous crimes will fail to sow sectarian strife among the Iraqi people,' Maliki said in a statement posted on his website.

The Shia and Sunni endowment offices are independent bodies affiliated to the government and are responsible for running mosques and their religious properties.

20 killed, 125 wounded in Iraq car bombing

Baghdad: At least 20 people were killed and 125 others wounded Monday in a suicide car bombing here in the Iraqi capital, Xinhua reported.The attack took place around 10.45 a.m. when a suicide bomber drove his explosives-laden car into the entrance of a Shia endowment office in Bab al-Mu'dham district, an interior ministry official said.

The powerful blast destroyed the building and damaged nearby houses, while many cars were left charred. A plume of black smoke was seen over the area.Security forces sealed off the scene, as ambulances, police and civilian cars evacuated the injured to nearby hospitals.

An official said the bombing was an attempt to create sectarian tensions.'There are agendas to divide the Iraqi people by stirring up tension between the Shia and Sunni endowment offices, as the attackers use the dispute over the al-Askari shrine in Samarra,' said Sami al-Massudi, deputy chief of the Shia endowment office.

The Shia office has been reportedly seeking to take over management of many Sunni mosques and properties, including the al-Askari shrine in Samarra, 110 km from Baghdad, which has the tombs of Ali al-Hadi and Hassan al-Askari, the 10th and 11th imams of the Shias.Sunnis in Samarra say the two imams are their ancestors and they have been running the shrine for over hundreds of years.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki condemned the attack.'We confirm that such heinous crimes will fail to sow sectarian strife among the Iraqi people,' Maliki said in a statement posted on his website.

The Shia and Sunni endowment offices are independent bodies affiliated to the government and are responsible for running mosques and their religious properties.

TP murder: Sijith taken to Mysore

Kozhikode: The SIT team probing TP Chandrsekharan's murder took Sijith, one of the accused, to Mysore for collecting evidence. Police are trying to establish the veracity of his statement as Sijith had told police that he had fled to Mysore after the attack. Sijith was working at a bakery in Hebbal and had told his workers in the bakery that his hand was injured in an accident.

TP murder: Sijith taken to Mysore

Kozhikode: The SIT team probing TP Chandrsekharan's murder took Sijith, one of the accused, to Mysore for collecting evidence. Police are trying to establish the veracity of his statement as Sijith had told police that he had fled to Mysore after the attack. Sijith was working at a bakery in Hebbal and had told his workers in the bakery that his hand was injured in an accident.

Sexy women in pics seen as objects

ANI | Jun 4, 2012,

Women's sexualized bodies are on display everywhere in perfume ads, beer billboards or movie posters and a new study has suggested that we think of these images as if they were objects, not people.
While people, both men and women, see images of sexy women's bodies as objects, sexy-looking men are seen as people, according to the study.
Sexual objectification has been well studied, but most of the research is about looking at the effects of this objectification.

"What's unclear is, we don't actually know whether people at a basic level recognize sexualized females or sexualized males as objects," said Philippe Bernard of Universite libre de Bruxelles inBelgium.Bernard cowrote the new paper with Sarah Gervais, Jill Allen, Sophie Campomizzi, and Olivier Klein.
Psychological research has worked out that our brains see people and objects in different ways. For example, while we're good at recognizing a whole face, just part of a face is a bit baffling.
On the other hand, recognizing part of a chair is just as easy as recognizing a whole chair.

One way that psychologists have found to test whether something is seen as an object is by turning it upside down. Pictures of people present a recognition problem when they're turned upside down, but pictures of objects don't have that problem.So Bernard and his colleagues used a test where they presented pictures of men and women in sexualized poses, wearing underwear. Each participant watched the pictures appear one by one on a computer screen.
Some of the pictures were right side up and some were upside down. After each picture, there was a second of black screen, then the participant was shown two images. They were supposed to choose the one that matched the one they had just seen.

People recognized right-side-up men better than upside-down men, suggesting that they were seeing the sexualized men as people. But the women in underwear weren't any harder to recognize when they were upside down—which is consistent with the idea that people see sexy women as objects. There was no difference between male and female participants."What is motivating this study is to understand to what extent people are perceiving these as human or not," Bernard said.The next step, he stated, is to study how seeing all these images influences how people treat real women.The study was published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

Sexy women in pics seen as objects

ANI | Jun 4, 2012,

Women's sexualized bodies are on display everywhere in perfume ads, beer billboards or movie posters and a new study has suggested that we think of these images as if they were objects, not people.
While people, both men and women, see images of sexy women's bodies as objects, sexy-looking men are seen as people, according to the study.
Sexual objectification has been well studied, but most of the research is about looking at the effects of this objectification.

"What's unclear is, we don't actually know whether people at a basic level recognize sexualized females or sexualized males as objects," said Philippe Bernard of Universite libre de Bruxelles inBelgium.Bernard cowrote the new paper with Sarah Gervais, Jill Allen, Sophie Campomizzi, and Olivier Klein.
Psychological research has worked out that our brains see people and objects in different ways. For example, while we're good at recognizing a whole face, just part of a face is a bit baffling.
On the other hand, recognizing part of a chair is just as easy as recognizing a whole chair.

One way that psychologists have found to test whether something is seen as an object is by turning it upside down. Pictures of people present a recognition problem when they're turned upside down, but pictures of objects don't have that problem.So Bernard and his colleagues used a test where they presented pictures of men and women in sexualized poses, wearing underwear. Each participant watched the pictures appear one by one on a computer screen.
Some of the pictures were right side up and some were upside down. After each picture, there was a second of black screen, then the participant was shown two images. They were supposed to choose the one that matched the one they had just seen.

People recognized right-side-up men better than upside-down men, suggesting that they were seeing the sexualized men as people. But the women in underwear weren't any harder to recognize when they were upside down—which is consistent with the idea that people see sexy women as objects. There was no difference between male and female participants."What is motivating this study is to understand to what extent people are perceiving these as human or not," Bernard said.The next step, he stated, is to study how seeing all these images influences how people treat real women.The study was published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

Hosni Mubarak refuses food, medicine in prisonCAIRO: Former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak has declined food and medicine since being taken to a prison after a court sentenced him to life behind bars for his role in the death of protestors last year.
In Cairo's Tora prison, Mubarak's mood has been bad "to the point of not even responding to those who greet him", said the el-Fagr newspaper.
Ever since the trial began in August, the 84-year-old Mubarak was detained in the International Medical Center, a facility run by the military near Cairo.
Mubarak and his former security chief Habib al-Adly were both convicted for the killings of around 900 protestors. They received life sentences.
Once the helicopter transporting Mubarak arrived at Tora prison, the ousted leader refused to leave the aircraft.
Security officials said he "suffered from a surprise health crisis" before they finally convinced him to go into the prison.
Mubarak was president for almost 30 years. He stepped down in February 2011 amid mass nationwide protests.

Hosni Mubarak refuses food, medicine in prisonCAIRO: Former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak has declined food and medicine since being taken to a prison after a court sentenced him to life behind bars for his role in the death of protestors last year.
In Cairo's Tora prison, Mubarak's mood has been bad "to the point of not even responding to those who greet him", said the el-Fagr newspaper.
Ever since the trial began in August, the 84-year-old Mubarak was detained in the International Medical Center, a facility run by the military near Cairo.
Mubarak and his former security chief Habib al-Adly were both convicted for the killings of around 900 protestors. They received life sentences.
Once the helicopter transporting Mubarak arrived at Tora prison, the ousted leader refused to leave the aircraft.
Security officials said he "suffered from a surprise health crisis" before they finally convinced him to go into the prison.
Mubarak was president for almost 30 years. He stepped down in February 2011 amid mass nationwide protests.