Science Fair for August 25th-31st

Welcome to the dog days of summer, everybody! I just took a gorgeous walk around the neighborhood as part of my renewed investment in a daily exercise regimen. Watching FitTV while sitting on the couch being lazy is, I have to say, a great way to guilt yourself into kicking it into gear.

This week's Science Fair is looong, I've been gathering the most interesting tidbits while staying out of the hot, hot heat outside! First, the news:

-We've been hearing about the bees disappearing, a.k.a. colony collapse disorder, for a while now. Could Bayer Pharmaceuticals be responsible for colony collapse in Germany? There's been talk of the adverse effects of pesticides on friendly insects and humans ever since their use became widespread in the farming industry. (I'm sure if you're up at Slow Food Nation in San Francisco this week, your ears are positively buzzing with hoopla about natural, organic farming for all.)

-Yuri Ivanovich Nosenko, a KGB spy who came in out of the cold to become an informant for the CIA, passed away this week. I love those LeCarre-ish stories from real life, especially since the Cold War seems to have revived lately...keep your ears peeled, dear readers!

-Most of us know the Dead Sea because of its amazing mineral- and salt-laden powers used in marketing beauty products. Sixty years ago, the Dead Sea scrolls were discovered, the oldest known written version of the Bible as we know it. Now, NASA technology is being used to share the rich history of the Dead Sea scrolls with the entire world. Rejoice, religious scholars!

-I love Bollywood (The early films starring Amitabh Bacchan, anyone? Delightful!) as much as a Cinema Studies graduate can with one little heart, but maybe it's gone too far in taking hints from Hollywood. What do you think, is Hari Puttar a little too close for comfort to our beloved Hogwarts kids?

-Now, two stories out of our favorite country! Japanese women are rejecting traditional gender roles to, well, be more career-driven. I have a bunch of cousins in Japan, all female, who never married and barely dated in their youth. How is that a bad thing, tell me! Maybe it's the quality of Japanese men today, hm? When they're not kidnapping their neighbors or dismembering foreign English teachers, they're stuffing their apartments with snake cages, tsk tsk!

-Style.com's Beauty Counter blog is adorable, a blend of high-priced makeup tidbits and indie personality. This week, they have an interview with Blake Hazard of The Submarines (you MUST get their new album, Honeysuckle Weeks, love love love it), talking about her love of pigtails and life on the road. That and, gloriously, fascinating and mind-blowing pics from the Shu Uemura and Viktor+Rolf collaboration.

-Finally, I leave you with THE PERIODIC TABLE OF AWESOMEMENTS! Man, I wish we'd thought of that. So comprehensive, so complete! Obviously made by members of the male species, however--perhaps we ladies need to populate our own table of mightily awesome stuff. I will agree with the inclusion of bacon, penguins, sunglasses, and cheese on the list, but mullets? Boobs? Really?

Enjoy, and have a great week, everyone!