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The Top 20 - ESPN, the sports network, has been making hay counting down the top 100 North American athletes of the 20th century, and with Ty Cobb, they've reached No. 20. Here are the remaining 19, in alphabetical order. You sort 'em out: Hank Aaron, Muhammad Ali, Jim Brown, Wilt Chamberlain, Babe Didrikson, Wayne Gretzky, Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, Carl Lewis, Joe Louis, Willie Mays, Martina Navratilova, Jack Nicklaus, Jesse Owens, Jackie Robinson, Bill Russell, Babe Ruth, Jim Thorpe, and Ted Williams. [Wired News]
This Old Universe - Until now, astronomers were unsure about how old the universe is. They knew it was old enough to drive, and could even buy beer, but estimates varied widely -- anywhere from 10 million years to 20 billion years. Now, aided by the Hubble Space Telescope, which has been tracking something called the Hubble Constant -- the rate at which the universe has been expanding since the Big Bang -- they've settled on 12 billion years. Our own little corner of heaven, where the Milky Way resides, is in a relatively new neighborhood: Astronomers estimate the age of our solar system at a mere 4.5 billion years. [Wired News]
Ties That Bind - A new line of ties is sure to stir up great party conversation. Infectious Awareables has created a line of silk and cloth clothing that feature patterns of more than 15 different infectious diseases and bacteria, as seen under a microscope. Tie and underwear patterns include Gonorrhea, Herpes, Ebola, Tuberculosis, AIDS, Syphilis, Chlamydia, and Malaria. Its developer, Roger Freeman, a dentist and lecturer on infectious diseases, bought the line, which had problems selling to department stores. The ties are now popular in the scientific and biomedical communities. The Black Plague tie is sold out. Of the Malaria tie, Freeman says, "the artist may have been on something when he did that one." [Wired News]
To Your Health - Cabernet Sauvignon, the world's noblest grape and the pride of Bordeaux and the Napa Valley, may also be the healthiest wine variety. A French researcher, reporting in the British medical journal Heart, says the grape has particularly high levels of resveratrol, which boosts "good cholesterol" and limits the production of artery-blocking "bad cholesterol." In an earlier study, researchers from the University of Glasgow singled out Chilean reds, including Cabernet Sauvignon, for their health-enhancing potential. [Wired News]
Too Hot to Trot - This little piggy wore sunscreen, that little piggy wore none. This little piggy had piglets, and that little piggy had none. Danish pork expert Liselotte Madsen has the explanation: If farmers want to encourage summertime mating, they should use sunblock because a sunburned sow isn't going to welcome the attentions of a 250-kilogram breeding boar if her back is scorched by the sun. Pharmacia-Upjohn has heard Madsen's plea, and next summer it will release an 8-SPF sunscreen made especially for livestock. [Wired News]
Tornado Hits Utah - At least one person was killed and more than a hundred injured when a rare tornado struck hit Salt Lake City on Wednesday. The downtown area looked like a war zone, with overturned trucks, uprooted trees, downed power lines, and streets littered with broken glass. The twister struck without warning, flattening tents pitched for an outdoor retail show near the Salt Palace Convention Center. It damaged the roof of the Delta Center, home of the Utah Jazz, and blew windows out of the Wyndham Hotel. [Wired News]
Trek Nearly Over - Nobody knows crisis and futility like the Russians do, and maybe that's why they clung stubbornly to their crumbling space station, Mir, for so long. But faced with the prospect of a crushing US$250 million annual cost for keeping the 13-year-old tub aloft, Russian space officials finally conceded defeat, saying that Mir will come down next year. Period. No more waiting for an angel to show up; no more hatching half-baked schemes to delay the inevitable. News accounts maintain that Mir's demise will deal a blow to Russian pride, but why? The space station long outlived its original mission, which is no small achievement. Now Russia can turn its attention to the future, and the International Space Station. Ochyn horosho, tovarich. [Wired News]
Tressed Out - Rachel Haigh should have listened to her mother. Instead, the British girl has died from chewing on her own hair. According to the inquest, Haigh, 17, had chewed on her hair for years, a habit that created a knotted mass the size of a rugby ball in her stomach. According to the inquest, doctors tried to surgically remove the tangled mass, but Haigh began to hemorrhage and died. When Haigh's mother was shown a photograph of the hairball, she said, "I couldn't believe it. It looked like a dead rat." [Wired News]
Trial Begins - With ceremonial solemnity, Republican prosecutors delivered the articles of impeachment to the Senate early Thursday, heralding the first presidential impeachment trial in 130 years. As the scene was broadcast live to the nation, House Judiciary Committee chairman Henry Hyde read to the Senate chamber the grounds for impeaching President Clinton: lying under oath to a grand jury and obstructing justice. Chief Justice William Rehnquist will be sworn in to preside over the trial, with the entire 100-member Senate serving as jury. [Wired News]
Trickle-Down Effect - The normally stolid Finns are seeing red, or at least yellow, as public drunkenness and urination become rife in Helsinki, their pretty-as-a-picture capital city. Like the rest of Finland, Helsinki is enjoying a run of prosperity, so certain sights and smells are not appreciated, or tolerated. City fathers want to create a special squad of police -- immediately dubbed "pee police" by those joshers in the Finnish press -- to go out and nab the miscreants, with evidence, er, in hand. Many Finns blame the growing nuisance on the relaxation of laws against public drunkenness. You think? [Wired News]
Tripped Up - Linda Tripp, who thought she was pretty clever by surreptitiously taping Monica Lewinsky blabbing about her affair with the leader of the free world, found out that she's not as slick as Slick Willie after all. A Maryland court indicted Tripp Friday on two counts of illegal wiretapping. One count accused her of illegally taping Lewinsky without her knowledge; the other nails her for disclosing those taped conversations to Newsweek magazine. Tripp and her attorneys will fall back on the usual sleazy defense: She was granted immunity from prosecution by independent counsel Kenneth Starr, so now they're saying the Maryland prosecutors aren't playing fair. [Wired News]
Troubles Continue - Describing Northern Ireland's Good Friday peace agreement as being "in tatters," Sinn Fein's Gerry Adams said Tuesday that only British Prime Minister Tony Blair is capable of "stitching it back together." Adams is hoping that Blair can persuade unionist leader David Trimble to accept a compromise that would allow the IRA to hang on to some of its weapons. Unionists are demanding that IRA forces completely disarm before their political ally, Sinn Fein, joins a coalition cabinet to run the province. [Wired News]
True at First Light - Don't mess with Tonga. Legislators there have approved a plan to introduce an hour of Daylight Savings Time on the last day of 1999 in order to make sure that it's the first country to host the dawn of the new millennium. The move was actually Tonga's riposte to Fiji, which approved a similar plan last year, hoping to leapfrog its island neighbor and be first to see the millennial dawn. Now Fiji's in a tough spot, because no matter how much you fiddle the clock there's not much you can do about geography. And Tonga is closer to the International Dateline than Fiji is. [Wired News]
Turks in Iraq - Ignoring objections from Baghdad, 10,000 Turkish troops crossed into Iraq Friday to attack Kurdish rebel bases. Iraq denounced the incursion and demanded that the troops withdraw. While the army pressed its attack, protesters in southern Turkey, angered by the arrest of Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan earlier this week, fired on police. Around 37,000 people have been killed since 1984, when fighting erupted over Kurdish attempts to establish a separate homeland in southeastern Turkey. [Wired News]
US Budget: $1.77 Trillion - President Clinton sent his budget for fiscal year 2000 to Congress Monday, and despite a projected record surplus, he declined to offer the across-the-board tax cut sought by Republicans. The US$400 billion earmarked for the military is the largest increase in defense spending in years. Clinton's budget forecasts a surplus of $76 billion, which he'd like to plow into shoring up Social Security and other domestic programs. Republicans were quick to criticize the lack of an income-tax cut -- their personal pet -- and the overall increase in spending. Clinton brushed GOP kvetching aside, proclaiming, "Our economic house is in order and strong." [Wired News]
Unfriendly Skies - Next time you fly KLM, you might want to consider leaving Fido at home. Dutch authorities are considering taking legal action against their national carrier following a report that the airline slaughtered 440 squirrels that were illegally imported from China. According to United Press International, the squirrels were shredded after veterinary authorities told the airline to get rid of the animals. [Wired News]
Unkindest Cut of All - Circumcising baby boys has been a Jewish and Muslim rite for centuries. Aside from that, the United States is the only country in the world that routinely practices circumcision, the removal of the foreskin from the penis. Now, the American Academy of Pediatrics says that the procedure may actually be more harmful than helpful and is recommending the practice be stopped. Whatever benefits may accrue from circumcision -- improved hygiene, reduced risk of urinary tract infections -- are outweighed by the trauma of the procedure, detractors say. Not only that, they add ominously, but it may reduce sexual pleasure later on. [Wired News]
Unloved, Underpaid - The president of the United States hasn't had a pay raise in years. While it's tempting to argue that no president in recent memory has earned one, a lot of people -- mainly in Washington -- think that the chief exec ought to get a bump up from the present wage of US$200,000. Advocates seem to like the idea of $400,000, a nice little 100 percent increase. Still, maybe it's warranted. Here's how Bill Clinton, the current prexy, stacks up against a few of his counterparts: German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder makes $297,000 annually, Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto pulls in $363,000, and Goh Chok Tok, Singapore's PM, rakes in $465,000. On the other hand, poor old Boris Yeltsin (as if governing Russia weren't a big enough headache), is paid a paltry $7,000. [Wired News]
Unnatural Gas - On the theory (well, it's more than a theory) that nothing is too tasteless for the American movie-going public, Howard Stern's The Adventures of Fartman may finally be headed for the screen. Stern, who knows a thing or two about bad taste, created the character of Clyde Flatiron, a tabloid reporter who survives an attempted poisoning by the mob and finds that its side effect -- chronic, devastating flatulence -- makes a handy weapon for literally blowing away the bad guys. The screenwriter for this epic, J.F. Lawton (Pretty Woman), interviewed by Daily Variety, actually likened his script about unrequited love to an updated Casablanca. Louie, this looks like the beginning of really stupid movie. [Wired News]
Unplugged, Redux - A power failure in the immediate vicinity of Wired Digital took Wired News offline for approximately 2 1/2 - 3 hours on Thursday. It was the second such power failure this week. Geez. Sorry for the inconvenience. [Wired News]
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