Russians Develop Their Own Stealth Fighter Jet

It has been a technology that has been around for a while in the west but the Russians are finally catching up this week when they rolled out their own version of a fighter jet that is invisible to radar. The T-50 is the first fighter Aircraft that has been developed by the Russians since the fall of The Soviet Union and it is designed to compete with the U.S. Air Force and its F-117 and the newer F-22 Raptor. It is capable of hitting multiple targets at once both on land and in the air while remaining virtually invisible to radar. It has taken decades to develop in total secrecy and this week the first prototype was rolled out for a test flight. The flight lasted about an hour and all went according to plan with the jet. Some experts say that part of the reason the Russians have developed the plane is in the hopes of being able to sell it overseas in order to increase exports and generate revenue for the Russian State. The plane is still in its developmental stages and the final version of the jet probably wont be available until all the glitches have been worked out and it is put through its paces. That should maybe take about 2 or 3 more years.

Bill Gates Announces Trial Phases For Malaria Vaccine

The fight against malaria worldwide was given a big boost in early 2009 when Bill Gates announced That through The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation they would be donating 168 million dollars to the Path Vaccine Initiative which does research to work on a solution to this disease. Malaria is a mosquito born malady that occurs when a mosquito bite leaves microscopic parasites under the skin of the victim. The first symptoms of the illness are fever and flu like chills. If left untreated it can kill. Worldwide 350-500 million people are infected with malaria and over 1 million die every year. Most of the victims are located in Sub-Saharan Africa. Bill Gates has said that the Path foundation is now in the third stage of trial phases for a vaccine. At the pace they are going a partially effective Malaria vaccine may be available in three years. A fully effective vaccine may take another five to ten years.

The Stabbing Of Martin Luther King Jr.

It is well known by many that the great civil Rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was shot and killed on April 4th, 1968 at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. What is less well known is that ten years earlier he had a close call and was stabbed and nearly killed in New York City. The event took place on September 20th, 1958 in Blumstein's Department Store in Harlem. Dr. King was attending a book signing for his first book titled "Strive Toward Freedom" and as he was signing books a middle aged black woman from Georgia named Izola Ware Curry came up to his table with a copy of his book for him to sign. As he was signing her book she asked him "Are you Martin Luther King?" As Dr. King was signing his name to the book he replied "Yes I Am." At that moment Curry produced a seven inch long letter opener and plunged it into his chest. Dr. King was rushed to a nearby hospital where surgery had to be performed in order to save his life. The doctors later told him that his aorta (the main artery to the heart) was nearly severed and that if he would have so much as sneezed he would have died. Izola Ware Curry was a vagrant who had a history of mental illness and Dr. King asked from his hospital bed that she not be arrested and jailed but that instead she be treated for her mental illness.

The Dirt Cookies Of Haiti

The island nation of Haiti as everyone now knows is going through perhaps it greatest and most pressing crisis dealing with the effects of the 7.0 magnitude earthquake it suffered on January 12th, 2010. It is the latest problem that it has had to deal with but perhaps its longest lasting problem has been one of a lack of food for its people which has plagued the country in perpetuity. Half the people who live there are unemployed and with most now living below the poverty line many in Haiti have taken to making cookies out of dirt in order to fill their stomachs and just get through the day. The way the cookies are made is first with the use of dirt as its main ingredient. Vegetable shortening, salt, and on occasion when it is available sugar will be added to a mix of mostly dirt and water which is gathered from the nearby mountains and mixed into a large pot or vat. Once the "batter" is stirred to a thick enough consistency it is then literally spooned out and spread on the ground and formed into the shape of individual cookies that are about the same size as a music CD with a spoon and then left out in the sunlight to dry. Once dried they are then hard and solid and "ready" for consumption. The dirt cookies are especially popular with children in Haiti because they are cheap to buy but they offer almost no nutritional value. Many of the locals who consume them say that they do make them sick sometimes but that after a while they claim that their bodies get used to them and tolerate them better. Many of the Haitians who consume the cookies because they have no other food options consider them a necessary evil.

Hospital Drugs Finding Their Way Into NYC Water Supply

If you are interested in finding an inexpensive blood pressure medication or birth control pill and you live in NYC you might try just drinking some tap water. Hospitals in the New York area are flushing so many medications down the toilet that a significant amount of the stuff is ending up in the city's water supply. State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's office has been conducting an investigation and he has said that there are medications showing up in the drinking water of the city that should not be there and may be dangerous. The problem according to his office is not serious yet but he is looking to take action now to prevent it from becoming a bigger problem in the future. Cuomo wants to conduct a crackdown on hospitals and nursing homes that flush left over medications down the toilets and sinks like anti-depressants, hormones, and sleeping pills. The meds are ending up in reservoirs upstate and in the drinking water supply which feeds the NYC and surrounding area which is populated by over 9 million people. The practice is legal and the hospitals are not breaking any laws but Cuomo has said that if it continues it will effect the purity of the city's water supply so he is putting pressure on hospitals in the city to not flush the stuff down the toilet anymore and instead find some other way to dispose of the drugs where in which they don't end up in the water supply. Once the stuff gets into the water there is no current technology that is capable of filtering it all out so not introducing the drugs to the water supply in the first place would solve the problem. The levels of medications in the drinking water presently are too low to cause any kinds of problems but if they continue to increase they could present a health hazard to the general public over time.

Police Now Using Airplanes To Catch Speeders

In these economic hard times it is getting harder for local municipalities to maintain their current levels of services with their shrunken tax revenues and it is forcing some of them to think outside the box in terms of coming up with new ways of generating more money. The latest idea some have come up with is to track and catch speeders using airplanes that monitor traffic from the sky. The way it works is like this: They paint lines on the highways every quarter mile and with the use of stop watches pilots will monitor how long a specific vehicle takes to get from one line to another to determine if the car is speeding. If it is determined that a car is in fact speeding a description and location of the vehicle is then radioed down to ground units who will then locate and stop the car and then issue the ticket. They are not using helicopters but rather fixed winged Cessna airplanes which are much quieter than choppers when they fly. The state of Florida has seven craft dedicated to this purpose and is thinking of expanding. These methods have been credited in Florida with the issuing of over 45000 tickets last year about 38000 of which were speeding related. The rest had to do with stopping vehicles that were driving erratically and drunk driving. There are currently 19 states that have similar programs running including California and New Jersey and that number is likely to expand in the future.