Photos are there for plenty of reasons. For one, people take photos to preserve memories: to capture an essence or to document a rather memorable event for posterity's sake.

Of course, photographs can also be used as evidences for something. There are people who claim to have captured beings classified as "supernatural", moving some doubting Thomases to rethink their stands on certain things.

One such example could be the recent photos taken from Mars via the Mars Global Surveyor.

The said pictures "suggest" that water has been present in the "dusty, cratered" planet for the last five years. Water's existence on Mars was being observed by NASA's Mars Exploration Program. And says lead scientist Michael Mayer, "These observations give the strongest evidence to date that water still flows occasionally on the surface of Mars."

So there's water in Mars, big deal. Well dude, here's the catch: water is quite important for lifeforms, and the presence of such may point out to life in Mars. Hmmm.. curiouser and curiouser...

But before grabbing those aluminium hats made of tinfoil and being all alien-paranoid like, better hold your reins. Oded Aharonson of the California Institute of Technology says that water ice has been detected on the North pole, and the photos may be just of those, instead of alien life form reservoirs.

So we're not too keen on toilets, right? I mean yeah, we make it pretty, we do our thing there, the end. It's not like it gives us clues on our daily activities or something.

NOT. Biblical scholar James Tabor and Israeli anthropologist Joe Zias discovered a "secluded" toilet at the Qumran site, a place where the Dead Sea Scrolls where unearthed, supposedly also where the Essenes, a "hard-core Jewish sect," lived. Now, a two thousand years old toilet may not be really that fascinating, but when you're studying a group of people who lived two millenia ago, and are trying to prove their existence, then an archaic toilet might be just your thing.

You see, there are Biblical experts who contest the Essenes' existence and believe Qumran is "a fortress or a pottery-making center that had nothing to do with the Essenes." However, the discovery of this toilet interestingly is aligned with common Jewish practices before, and the Essenes, hard-core Jews as they were, most likely fervently practiced the same sanitary procedures as well.

"Preserved parasites" were also found in the site, which indicated the presence of poop, or to be more specific, buried poop. Now, burying one's own fecal matter was believed to be a traditional Jewish custom, as "bathroom duties were believed to be unclean in the sight of God."

Hmmm... curiouser and curiouser. This sheds another angle to the Essenes' existence; although of course, we can never be too sure. Want to play Robert Langdon, anyone?

If you're familiar with the Kübler-Ross model, then you know that people go through five stages when dealing with death: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Little do others know that this can be applied to dealing with weight loss as well. Let's take a look:

1. Denial: I'm not really fat. I'm just chubby. It's in the genes, you know? As if eating junk food everyday will make me gain 20 lbs.
2. Anger: So what if I live on a junk food diet?! I'm way different from the guy in "Supersize Me"! (smashes windows)
3. Bargaining: Okay, I'll cut down on the cholesterol. BUT not when I'm stressed, which is like, every single day.
4. Depression: I can't do it. Veggies taste yucky, anyway.
5. Acceptance: So what if I'm not thin? Lindsay Lohan and Nicole Richie look creepy anyway.
   

While we don't have grudges about being overweight, we got to admit that being obese may cause serious health problems for you in the future. Of course we're not saying that being overweight and being obese aren't different. After all, we got smart readers, so we know that you know the difference already, right?

Anyway, if you're too keen on weight loss, maybe we can help you out. We got ten tips for weight loss, minus the no-calories fuss. Although people have various weight loss styles, others claimed that these worked for them, so they may probably work for you as well. Why don't you take a look?

Click "Full Article" to take a look at the list!

You guys are probably aware that lasers have the cool ability to send large amounts of data over long distances (we're talking about info exchange between cities and across oceans) because of fiber optic cables.

Well, some researchers at Intel and at the University of California are also aware of that too, and decided to create silicon-based chips that actually produce laser beams. You see, sending data through wires can sometimes take days, but if you replace the wires with laser light, your data can be transferred before you even have the chance to say, "wow."

Swell, eh? Apparently, laser-silicon chips are 100 times faster than most laser-based gadgets, and are known to be cheaper too. And how does once come up with these laser-silicon chip thingamajigs? Basically, you just sandwich your regular silicon chip between a layer of light-emitting indium phosphide and special channels that serve as light-wave guides. Easy,eh? Just like taking candy from a baby.

And it seems that there are a lot of people taking interest in this field, too. Reports say that Japanese scientists are looking into it but they're using a different chemical element in their research.

This breakthrough may lead to a new breed of leaner and meaner supercomputers with jaw-dropping-data-transfer speeds, so we're crossing our fingers that everyone in the community will give it a thumbs-up. Who knows? Maybe next time we'll get to see silicon-chips made from light saber material.

Imagine the typical scene in high school cafeterias. You just grab your lunch, and you're walking towards "your table." As you make your way through, you pass by those beefy guys called "jocks," the bespectacled nerds with their thick Calculus books, the black-garbed artsy goths, and the so-called pretty, popular girls.

Now imagine animals doing the same thing. But in their case, chimps kill poor monkeys who are of different species, and some fish actually attack those that are of the same kind as theirs but were hatched from a different lake. A bit barbaric, if you ask us.

However, those behavior point to one thing: our brains are wired to categorize by race, age and gender. So according to Psychology, you might was well infer that stereotyping is unavoidable at one point or another. In fact, stereotyping begins during childhood. A group of researchers showed two pictures of men to some kids, one was Asian, while another is an Arab. When asked which one they like better, most responded that they like the "Chinese guy better because he looks nicer and has a smile on," when in fact both men were smiling. Moreover, the kids reported that the Arab "is a scary dude."

But even if stereotyping is innate in us humans, it doesn't give us a license to make other people's lives miserable just because they're different from us. In fact, Anthony Greenwald, a professor of Psychology at the University of Washington says that "If we're just aware that it exists, it gives us a chance to do something, to be vigilant to not let our unintended biases — our implicit biases — take over our behavior, which can happen unintentionally." After all, those subconscious stereotyping thoughts can only prove to be harmful when we act on them.

Oftentimes,we don't care much about insects. It's either we squish them, or just plain ignore them. But a great deal of scientists pay much attention to them, especially a group in England. Why? Well, they're looking into making the prospect of a "human gill" a possibility.

Errrr, no... this is not one of those crazy experiments where they do cloning stuff. You see, the diving beetle has rigid hairs on its abdomen that create a film of air when it repels water. This air film causes oxygen from the water to come in, and carbon dioxide to come out.

Hmmmm... oxygen in, carbon dioxide out. Reminds you of a particular thing called "breathing." Apparently, some materials can copy this effect, and the English scientists are currently looking into that, such as a super-water-repellent porous foam with an oxygen-sealing device inside. This will aid humans (yep, that includes you) in "breathing" underwater. Of course, further studies still have to be conducted, but it seems that they're in for a good start.

If this study proves to be a success, you won't have to be afraid of drowning anymore. Imagine the things you can do underwater! Of course that won't eliminate the presence of sharks and killer sting-rays, though.

Smoke coming out from incense and candles is said to be harmful to your health.

Atmospheric scientist Stephan Weber from the University of Duisberg-Essen in Essen, Germany conducted a study at the St. Engelbert Church in M?im an der Ruhr, Germany, where church staff regularly burn candles during mass and also incense on some holidays. Incense burners and candles were lit for services at midnight on December 25th, until the morning of the following day, as well as during New Year's Eve. Only candles were burned during regular services.

Basically, he measured certain particles from the candle and incense smoke that are considered harmful to our lungs, heart and arteries.

To aid in his study, Weber placed two devices in the church that enabled him to measure the air quality in the church for 13 days since Christmas Eve. "The equipment measured concentrations of particles up to 10 micrometers in diameter (PM10) and also those 1 µm or smaller (PM1) ..."

And what did he find out?

A lot of adults would happily recount their Star Trek memories to members of this generation. This techie show seems to be deeply entrenched in many people's lives, that it even served as inspiration for them to do lots of things.

On a lighter note, Google technical writer Tom Galloway refers to Captain James T. Kirk as an early blogger because of the captain's log. He also said that the "flip-open communicators" could be regarded as early models of mobile phones. He adds that the repository of info found on the ship's computer may be an earlier version of Google.

And to celebrate Star Trek, a convention is being held at the Las Vegas Hilton with an expected attendance of a staggering 10,000 Star Trek fans. To commemorate this event, Google duplicated the bridge of the famous Starship Enterprise, much to the joy of numerous Star Trek fans. Google views the said convention as a way to meet new talent, as most Star Trek fans tend to be "tech-savvy."

The said convention is scheduled from  August 17 until August 20, 2006.

You may have heard of the hype about Pluto becoming a "pluton" together with its moon. Then there's the proposed 12-planet set-up for our solar system. Now, some astronomers are considering the moon a planet, along with 53 other planet candidates.

According to the new definition of planet proposed by the International Astronomical Union, any round object orbiting the sun is a planet, unless it already has a planet of its own to orbit around. However, there's this thing called the barycenter, which is the center of all gravity. If the barycenter is "outside the larger object, then the smaller object is a planet." That's the reason why Pluto's moon Charon is being considered a planet by some astronomers.

But back to the barycenter. At the moment, the system's barycenter is the earth. But in a couple of a few billion years, the barycenter will "move outside the Earth as the Moon recedes." That this, if the Earth or Moon still exists.

Whether our moon, Pluto, or various asteroids will be considered as planets will be discussed soon as authorities will vote on the new definition of planet on the 24th at the IAU meeting in Prague.

It seems that $500M is considered cheap in NASA.

A couple of months ago, NASA unveiled the open Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program, where various companies were encouraged to turn in their proposals for various spacecrafts. Six finalists were selected: SpaceDev, Spacehab, t/Space, Andrews Space, SpaceX and Rocketplane Kistler; with the last two companies emerging as winners.

Not only does this program encourage output from various commercial sectors, but apparently it also saves them from humongous costs of spacecraft production. SpaceX would be earning $278M while Rocketplane Kistler would get almost $207M if these two companies meet the quarterly performance objectives set by NASA in the coming years.

For companies who didn't get the project, don't lose hope. Phase II of the COTS program will kick off sometime in 2010, so they might want to prepare for that.

If all goes well, NASA will save quite a lot of money, and will foster ties with various private sectors. However, if this project proves to be problematic, $500M dollars will go the drain. So let's keep our fingers crossed that this project will be a success, ayt?