Mind Soup

CAIRO – Egypt began slaughtering the roughly 300,000 pigs in the country Wednesday as a precautionary measure against the spread of swine flu even though no cases have been reported here yet, the Health Ministry said. The move immediately provoked resistance from pig farmers. At one large pig farming center just north of Cairo, farmers refused to cooperate with Health Ministry workers who came to slaughter the animals and the workers left without carrying out the government order. "It has been decided to immediately start slaughtering all the pigs in Egypt using the full capacity of the country's slaughterhouses," Health Minister Hatem el-Gabaly told reporters after a Cabinet meeting with President Hosni Mubarak. Egypt's overwhelmingly Muslim population does not eat pork due to religious restrictions. But the animals are raised and consumed by the Christian minority, which some estimates put at 10 percent of the population. Health Ministry spokesman Abdel Rahm...

SEOUL, South Korea – South Korean scientists say they have engineered four beagles that glow red using cloning techniques that could help develop cures for human diseases. The four dogs, all named "Ruppy" — a combination of the words "ruby" and "puppy" — look like typical beagles by daylight. But they glow red under ultraviolet light, and the dogs' nails and abdomens, which have thin skins, look red even to the naked eye. Seoul National University professor Lee Byeong-chun, head of the research team, called them the world's first transgenic dogs carrying fluorescent genes, an achievement that goes beyond just the glowing novelty. "What's significant in this work is not the dogs expressing red colors but that we planted genes into them," Lee told The Associated Press on Tuesday. His team identified the dogs as clones of a cell donor through DNA tests and earlier this month introduced the achievement in a paper on the Web site of the jo...

It's been a while since I blogged, so here's my 5 cents of the day: It is really bizarre how we get people into our lives and believe that we are really aware of the persons they are, and suddenly… this image simply fades away in a split of second. It takes a lot of effort to trust others and when we trust them, we trust blindly. but then again, every person is hiding behind a mask carrying a mysterious and a totally different person within. Whether they are friends or lovers, they are always not the people we thought they are… somehow and in some way this hidden person appears…This reality leaves us cynical, doubting every single person we meet. This reality makes us not only wiser but also extremely cautious and... hurt. The fact that we trust others so blindly and then finding out that they are not who we thought they are, hurts, deeply hurts… we give all what we have and from the bottom of our hearts and then we realize that this person is even appreciating…after exhausting...

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These are just a few of the most beautiful places in the world, most interesting and captivating aquariums, where you can easily break into the mesmerizing secrets of the underwater world. World’s Largest Aquarium - Georgia Aquarium, Atlanta, a wonderful home for more than 100,000 animals of 500 different species (notable specimens: whale sharks, beluga whales, manta ray) and with a capacity of 8.1 million US gallons (31,000 m³) of marine fresh water. Source: Wikipedia World’s Second Largest Aquarium - Churaumi Aquarium,part of the Ocean Expo Commemorative National Government Park located in Motobu, Okinawa, Japan; capacity: 7,500-cubic meters (1,981,290 gallons) of water; one of the few places where visitors can see a great variety of sea creatures including sharks and manta rays. Copyright © ozymiles Sources: Green Expander , mattw Largest Aquarium in Europe - Acquario di Genova – [10,000m2 area, 70 water tanks] a spectacular structure and an emotional trip acro...