Free Republic

The winter vomiting bug norovirus has struck 2.8million people, with health professionals braced for another rise as people return to schools and offices. The virus - which causes projectile vomiting, diarrhoea, mild fevers and headaches - is striking down more than 200,000 a week, according to official estimates. Three hospitals have been placed on red alert, while hundreds of wards up and down the country have been closed to new patients as the number of beds being taken up by bug victims reaches critical levels.

It looks like a big flashlight — but it's really a nonlethal weapon designed to make you sick. Intelligent Optical Systems, Inc., of Torrance, Calif., has been granted a contract by the Department of Homeland Security to develop what it calls the "LED Incapacitator," according to a DHS online newsletter. The handheld device using light-emitting diodes to emit super-bright pulses of light at rapidly changing wavelengths, causing disorientation, nausea and even vomiting in whomever it's pointed at.

It’s no wonder that the American people are frustrated with the Republican Congress. Americans deserve progress, but instead are bombarded with politics driven by fear and division. They deserve action on the challenges we face as a nation - an endless and costly war in Iraq, skyrocketing gas prices and soaring health-care costs. Rather than dealing with real priorities, the Republican leadership is focused on writing discrimination into the Constitution. Just like the circus surrounding the Senate’s effort to intrude into the Terry Schiavo case, today the Senate will begin debate on the Federal Marriage Amendment - a wholly inappropriate...

Space-travelers face a topsy-turvy world where up and down is nowhere to be found. Sensors in your inner ear signal to the brain not only that you’re not in Kansas anymore but the familiar tug of Earth’s one-gravity is missing. Very few astronauts have what’s called the "lead head"—immune from space adaptation syndrome or space sickness. Vertigo, nausea, headaches, and in some cases vomiting can strike a new arrival to space. Treatment with medications during the early flight days of a space mission is common, though NASA continues to search for the best way to counter the space sickness. Everything...

Songs, like poetry, are an important component of my teaching. The lyrical metaphors, rhythms, and stories in many songs motivate and educate students. It's amazing what my fifth graders will remember from a song, as compared to what they forget from my talking. I introduce a new "song of the week" each Monday and the students receive a copy of the lyrics to keep in their three-ring binder that collects much of my alternative curriculum. We start each morning with the song, and usually within a day or two the children are singing along — regardless of musical genre. Sometimes...