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COLLEGE STATION, Tex., July 3 -- Chalk up the widely publicized report that watermelons can enhance erections, much like a certain PDE-5 inhibitor, to a stretched version of the truth by a university PR officer seeking a good story for the Fourth of July. A somewhat red-faced plant scientist, who was quoted extensively in a Texas A&M press release, backed away from claims that the summer picnic staple actually can promote erections. But he didn't abandon the notion entirely. Bhimu Patil, Ph.D., director of the Fruit and Vegetable Improvement Center at Texas A&M, said he was sorry that a press...

A double blow for solar energy EPAIT SEEMED so promising—mirrors sprawled across desert land in the scorching south-west delivering clean electricity and helping to wean Americans off imported fossil fuels. Some scientists and industry developers claim that Nevada’s empty and sun-drenched expanses alone could supply enough terawatts to power the entire country. Now even the optimists fear this wonderful prospect may be a mirage. Congress has been dithering over extending a valuable investment tax credit for solar-energy projects, which solar advocates say is critical to the future of their industry but which is due to expire at the end of...

Watermelon May Have Viagra-effectDr. Bhimu Patil, director of Texas A&M's Fruit and Vegetable Improvement Center, says watermelon may have Viagra-like effects. (Credit: Image courtesy of Texas A&M University ScienceDaily (July 1, 2008) — A cold slice of watermelon has long been a Fourth of July holiday staple. But according to recent studies, the juicy fruit may be better suited for Valentine’s Day. That’s because scientists say watermelon has ingredients that deliver Viagra-like effects to the body’s blood vessels and may even increase libido. “The more we study watermelons, the more we realize just how amazing a fruit it is in...

Vatican City (AHN) - In an attempt to give moral and ethical behavior more significance to current times, the Vatican has recently announced seven new deadly sins, published in an issue of the L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican's official newspaper. The revision of the list comes after 1,500 years, with Vatican officials explaining that the new items address a global "secular" society bent on the concerns in the age of globalization. The sins are said to be an address to the "decreasing sense of sin" in the modern world. "The sins of today have a social resonance as well as an...

Embracing Earth Charter key to environmental salvation Author and U of A professor Colin Soskolne says humans need to smarten up. March 7, 2008 - Edmonton -- Human beings, laments Colin Soskolne, are a "seriously dumb species." Just what kind of defect drives us to destroy the very ecosystems that provide us with sustenance? Why do we turn away from mounting, irrefutable evidence that we are sabotaging our very existence?Such questions are asked in a new collection of essays, called Sustaining Life on Earth: Environmental and Human Health through Global Governance, edited by Soskolne, on the environment and human health."Our...

A RACIALLY insensitive moment from Bill Clinton's boyhood is coming back to haunt him. It's a postcard the future president sent his grandma Edith Cassidy in 1966 showing a black youth eagerly polishing a gigantic watermelon, titled "Hope, Arkansas - Home of the World's Largest Watermelon." Clinton, 19 at the time and a sophomore at Georgetown University, wrote: "Dear Mammaw, Thought I would send you one of your cards just to prove I'm using them! My tests are over and I'm just starting the second term. Hope you are well and happy . . . Love, Bill." Online auction house...

THE Conservatives will propose banning plasma screens and other energy-guzzling electrical goods in a report to be unveiled next week. The proposals target white goods like fridges and freezers, as well as TVs, personal computers and DVD players that use too much energy or operate on stand-by. The ideas come from a Conservative group set up by David Cameron to develop policies to protect the environment and although the measures to make household electrical appliances more energy efficient are not binding on Mr Cameron, they are thought likely to be warmly received by the Tory leader. The group will also...

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- Oklahoma already has a state fruit, so legislation given final approval by the state Senate on Tuesday declares the watermelon as the official state vegetable. The measure was introduced in the state House by Democratic Representative Joe Dorman of Rush Springs, site of an annual watermelon festival in August. State Senator Don Barrington, R-Lawton, sponsored the bill in the state Senate.

Scratch a radical environmentalist, find a radical, full stop. Case in point: Boston Globe columnist James Carroll. In his New thinking to save the earth [is that all?], Carroll calls for nothing less than the end of the United States as we know it, and a yours-is-mine socialism. Carroll claims that "if the earth is to survive as a human habitat," the meaning of four subjects "must be transformed." Among the things Carroll wants to redefine are "nation" and "property." Ominous enough, but getting down into the details is even more chilling. Nation: A 19th-century notion of national sovereignty...

Climate response has barely scratched the surface on social inequity, according to James Norman. THE new millennium has seen unprecedented shifts in world politics and economics, and increasingly climate change is taking centre stage. Yet there are many aspects of global warming that we have barely begun to understand — such as its potential to exacerbate already existing social inequity on both the local and international level. The Equity in Response to Climate Change Roundtable has brought about a unique partnership between Australia's peak environment and welfare groups — the Brotherhood of St Laurence, Australian Conservation Foundation, National Welfare Rights...

BCC leaders throw out teacher's suspension By Ashley BachSeattle Times Eastside bureauBellevue Community College leaders have thrown out a one-week unpaid suspension for an instructor who wrote a racially insensitive math question that sparked a national controversy last spring.(snip)A few years ago, Ratener wrote a question that presented a scenario about a person named "Condoleezza" throwing a watermelon off a roof.School officials said this demeaned U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and employed a racist caricature of blacks eating watermelons that dates to the 1800s.A student complained last spring, and by April the issue had become a national story. Some in...

The Green MenaceBy Christopher ArchangelliFrontPageMagazine.com | April 9, 2003 Back in the dark Cold War days of 1984 a seed was brought to American soil. Fallen from the vine of the Green Party in Germany, planted in the dark socialist earth of the American Left, and watered with rampant anti-Americanism, the Green Committees of Correspondence took root in 1990 and adopted their first national Platform. By 1996 the Green Party was formed and the twelve years of growth had created a succulent fruit for the far-left movement: the watermelon. Green on the outside and red on the inside, the watermelon...

Greenpeace: Stop Global Warming or NY SubmergesSun Oct 27, 1:08 PM ET By Sugita Katyal NEW DELHI (Reuters) - By the year 2080, Manhattan and Shanghai could be underwater, droughts and floods could become more extreme and hundreds of millions of people will be at risk from disease, starvation and water shortages. That is the picture that a Greenpeace senior official painted of the future if the world failed to take urgent steps to curb greenhouse gas emissions and limit global warming (news - web sites). "We're talking of about the submergence of islands, submergence of Shanghai, the submergence of...

Out of the 19 Islamic terrorists that attacked America in 9/11, how many Iraqis?Hint-----ZERO Out of the thousands of Islamic militants arrested in the US and Europe, how many Iraqis?Hint----ZERO Where did the US discover there is a new El Quaida terrorist camp? Hint----Iran, not IraqWell, I am not the smartest man in the world, but the above facts should give me a hint on who should be my greatest enemy?

Cubic WatermelonFarmers in the southern Japanese town of Zentsuji have discovered the technique to grow their watermelons in square shape. A round watermelon can take up a lot of room in a refrigerator, and the usually round fruit often sits awkwardly on refrigerator shelves. Clever Japanese farmers have forced their watermelons to grow into a square shape by inserting the melons into square, tempered glass cases while the fruit is still growing on the vine. But cubic fruit comes with an expensive tag: Each square watermelon costs 10,000 yen, the equivalent of about $82. Regular watermelons in Japan cost from...