Regular space tourism might be coming to earthlings in a much closer date than the Jetsons age, thanks to the eager legislators of New Mexico. On April 3, a referendum will be held with the voters of New Mexico, to decide on a new sales tax to fund this space tourism project.

The people of Mexico plan to name such a spaceport "Spaceport America". New Mexico governor Bill Richardson worked with the southwest desert state's legislature to secure 33 million dollars for this spaceport that they plan to make the world's first commercial spaceport.

If the lawmakers get through this referendum, revenue-generated taxes will create Spaceport America, whose maiden voyage is targeted to shoot up the space three years from now. Ain't that exciting? Already there are plans to build spaceports all over the world. New Mexico is swept up in a race to build the first functioning commercial space port in the world.

In the US alone, plans for commercial spaceports are being implemented in California and Oklahoma. The New Mexico spaceport however needs another 67 million dollars, plus license by the Federal Aviation Administration, to get it up and running.

A handful of people all around the world have actually already experienced being space tourists. The latest one is an Iranian-born American woman who paid US$ 25 million dollars to space tourism agency Space Adventures for a week-long ride.

In an effort to stop the spread of the fatal West Nile Virus, officials of the City of Ardmore, Oklahoma are now trapping and testing mosquitoes to see if they can locate an insect carrying the virus. After seven reported cases of the virus from Carter County this year, with one resulting in death, the city has been setting traps all over town for almost a month now.

The trap is a bait of grass mixed with water and allowed to sit for five days, then placed into a pan. A battery-powered fan is installed to suck the mosquitoes up a tube, which is seated over the pan leading up to netting.

"All areas of town where we have trapped the mosquitoes has been negative," said Ardmore Street Superintendent Bruce Cypert. While they know that the species of mosquito carrying the virus is indeed present in Ardmore, the ones that they have caught so far do not carry the disease.

After the mosquitoes are trapped and frozen for two hours until they die, they are then sent to a lab every week at the university. The process is limited to a minimum of 50 mosquitoes per jar tested at a time, as it is expensive. However, the whole thing does not cost the city even a single dime, as the State University has offered its free service for it.

The West Nile virus mainly infects birds, but can also infect humans through the bite of an infected mosquito. About 80% of the cases show that the infection causes no symptoms. However, for others, the virus causes flu-like symptoms known as West Nile fever, with symptoms including malaise, fever, anorexia, nausea, vomiting, eye pain, headache, myalgia, diarrhea, rash and lymphadenopathy.

What makes this virus fatal is that it is able to pass the blood-brain barrier, and the most serious effects of which are encephalitis (inflammation of the brain) and meningitis (inflammation of the lining of the brain and spinal cord). The symptoms develop 3 to 15 days after infection, lasting three to six days. No effective treatment is known.