Tech: Short-cut to International Space Station

(Reuters) - Two Russian cosmonauts and a U.S. astronaut took a short cut to the International Space Station on Thursday, arriving at the orbital outpost less than six hours after their Soyuz capsule blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

The express route, used for the first time to fly a crew to the station, saved about 45 hours  from the usual ride to the International Space Station, allowing NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy and Russian cosmonauts Pavel Vinogradov and Alexander Misurkin to get a jumpstart on their planned 5.5-month mission.

The crew's Soyuz capsule parked itself at the station's Poisk module at 10:28 p.m. EDT (0228 GMT Friday), just five hours and 45 minutes after launch.

All previous station crews, whether flying aboard NASA's now-retired space shuttles or on Russian Soyuz capsules, took at least two days to reach the station, a $100 billion research laboratory that flies about 250 miles above Earth.

Info: Interesting and Unusual Facts

• Facetious and abstemious are the only words that contain all the vowels in the correct order.

• "Almost" is the longest commonly used word in the English language with all the letters in alphabetical order.

• "Dreamt" is the only English word that ends in the letters "mt".

• "Fickleheaded" and "fiddledeedee" are the longest words consisting only of letters in the first half of the alphabet.

• "Asthma" and "isthmi" are the only six-letter words that begin and end with a vowel and have no other vowels between.

• "Forty" is the only number which has its letters in alphabetical order. "One" is the only number with its letters in reverse alphabetical order.

• "Four" is the only number whose number of letters in the name equals the number.

• "Ma is as selfless as I am" can be read the same way backwards. If you take away all the spaces you can see that all the letters can be spelled out both ways.

• "One thousand" contains the letter A, but none of the words from one to nine hundred ninety-nine has an A.

• "Rhythms" is the longest English word without the normal vowels, a, e, i, o, or u.

• "Stewardesses" is the longest word that can be typed with only the left hand.

• "Taxi" is spelled exactly the same in English, French, German, Swedish, Portuguese, and Dutch.

• "The sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick" is said to be the toughest tongue twister in English.

• "THEREIN" is a seven-letter word that contains thirteen words spelled using consecutive letters: the, he, her, er, here, I, there, ere, rein, re, in, therein, and herein.

• "Underground" is the only word in the English language that begins and ends with the letters "und."

Health: Its Dangerous to Sleep With a Cell Phone Under Your Pillow

Most experts agree with the warnings to avoid sleeping with a cell phone under your pillow.

The “under the pillow” angle of cell phone radiation is just a subset of a larger discussion on the topic of cell phone radiation in general. Though there is some evidence to support harmful effects of cell phone use on the brain, the jury is out on brain cancer or brain tumors and cell phone use.

Nevertheless, most experts advise taking the safe route and limiting unnecessary extended exposure, such as sleeping with a cell phone next to your head.

Ways to Reduce Cell Phone Radiation

While the debate rages, many people prefer to err on the side of caution and try to minimize their cell phone radiation exposure. Such steps include:

• Keeping cell phone several feet away while sleeping.
• Using speaker instead of talking directly into the handset.
• Text instead of talking.
• Use headphones or Bluetooth connectors.

If you are using your phone at night for its clock or alarm features, consider putting it in “airplane mode” which suspends the phone’s transmission functions.

Health: Do not sit on your wallet..!!

Make sure when you sit in your office chair your wallet is not in your back pocket. Same goes for driving more than half an hour sitting on your wallet, which will lead to sciatica or back pain.

The healthiest option is to move the wallet to your front pocket!!