Made of stardust : The lesson of the day.
So we're made up of bits of LONG dead stars and such that exploded. That's right, everything you're made of, I'm made of and this planet we're sitting on is made of dead stars and other cosmic dust. When we're dead and this planet is eaten by an expanding sun, our bits will get tossed out into space once the sun explodes/dies. Our bits will be sprayed into the galaxy and we'll shower upon other planets, stars and waft around in space. Some bits might turn into other creatures, become part of another planets ring system or even hang out with a comet for a few million years.

It doesn't matter what you believe will happen to you when you die, this is the reality of what will happen to your body. If you're buried, your bits go into the soil and yep, your little particles and bits get filtered into other stuff and reused. Even if you're burnt up, bits have gone into the air, and there are still bits left over to put in a box, which goes back into the soil (eventually, even if it takes a few hundred years for the little urn you're in to deteriorate.). If you believe your soul goes somewhere else, that's fine, but your dead ass is getting reused here on earth until the sun eats it.

The sun is guessed to be about halfway through its life, giving us another 5 billion years. Sure that's a long time off, but in the face of eternity, it's only a moment away. We're a part of this universe and always will be, no matter what. Don't make it suck more than it has to for yourself or anyone else.

Does it worry anyone else they only train for "less than a year"?
I see commercials for medial assistants and they go on about how they trained in only a few months, how easy it was and anyone can do it. Uh, only a few months? Easy? I don't know about anyone else, but I sure as hell don't want some person who only trained for a few months helping me out with ANYTHING medical.

I know a number of people who trained for years to become nurses or nurses assistants and they're out of work. Why the hell aren't they put to work in the medial field, where their skill and actual knowledge can have them helping people? Why? Because it's cheaper to have these people do work than actual trained professionals. (For those who think Canada has a perfect health system, it most certainly does not, and needs a major overhaul.)

I would much rather have someone who trained for years than a couple of months at some overnight/online/correspondence school. I don't care if these people are doing data entry for medical offices, even ONE mistype can change a prescription and life. (Someone with training would hopefully notice this mistake.) We need to appreciate and compensate those with the knowledge because it's them who deal with the people we care about and ourselves.

The last time I was at the doctor, I dealt with nurses and assistants almost 80% of the time; I sure as hell wouldn't be happy to discover that each of them had less than a year of training. Those that wish to train in only a few months should look to other opportunities where they're not involved with anything as important as our health. Or, if anything, train these people how to properly wipe things down and sterilize equipment in hospitals, or even follow around doctors and insist they wash their hands every 10 minutes. Just doing that would help save some lives at least.

Either way, I want these bullshit commercials off my TV and the next time I deal with anyone in the health care industry, I'll be asking how long they were in school for this and what other qualifications they've got. Sure I might seem like a nosy bitch to them, but it's my health at stake and I sure as hell can't rely on others to ensure that the people I'm dealing with are trained professionals. That's right, I'll even ask the doctor if she washed her hands before dealing with me.

Random research.
That's right, stuff Wikipedia & other online sources say but as always, use your own brain to determine what you think.

Pre-processing : What the article skims nicely over is that humans have this built into our brains. Welcome to your optic nerve, it's allowing you to see this page (and yes, you can get by the eyeball photo at the top of the page.) This little bit in the optic nerve article made me wonder what we're missing out there, other than going blind from the sun. The optic nerve contains 1.2 million nerve fibers. This number is low compared to the roughly 130 million receptors in the retina, and implies that substantial pre-processing takes place in the retina before the signals are sent to the brain through the optic nerve.

Transmutation - "For Christ's sake, Soddy, don't call it transmutation. They'll have our heads off as alchemists."

Canada demands to have UFO technology : Damn straight, hand it over and we'll start building some funky stuff. When I see articles like these, I save them.