Painkillers are causing twice the number of overdose deaths in Ontario than they were two decades ago, a precedent-setting study has found. Most of the people these opioid-related drugs are killing got them through a prescription and had seen a doctor in the month before they died.

The increase mirrors a dramatic rise in prescriptions for oxycodone, a potent opiate found in OxyContin and Percocet that has proliferated in an epidemic of chronic pain that has turned Canadians into a nation of pill-poppers – using more prescription opioids per capita than any country but the United States and Belgium. Read the full story

The United States Marine Corps will turn 234 on Tuesday and birthday celebrations will be taking place at bases stretching from the halls of Montezuma all the way to the shores of Tripoli.

Marine Air Corps Station Yuma, however, got the party started a few days earlier by holding a formal ceremony at the base’s parade field on Friday morning.

“Happy 234th birthday. And most of you don’t look a day over 18,” MCAS Yuma Commanding Officer Col. Mark Werth said during the celebration. Read the full story

The mysterious moving stones of the packed-mud desert of Death Valley have been a center of scientific controversy for decades. Rocks weighing up to hundreds of pounds have been known to move up to hundreds of yards at a time. Some scientists have proposed that a combination of strong winds and surface ice account for these movements. However, this theory does not explain evidence of different rocks starting side by side and moving at different rates and in disparate directions. Moreover, the physics calculations do not fully support this theory as wind speeds of hundreds of miles per hour would be needed to move some of the stones.

The Mysterious Sailing Stones

In an area known as the “Racetrack playa” in Death Valley near the western border of Arizona, there are an amazingly large number of stones, ranging in size from mere pebbles to half ton boulders that regularly travel by themselves and no one has ever been able to explain why!

These huge stones move of their own volition, leaving miles of zig-zagged, curved and straight tracks that have continued to baffle the scientific community for decades.  As you can see by the photos, the hardened surface of the landscape is marbled with the trails of water rivulets that would make concealing evidence of outside interference impossible.  So the big question is, just how DO these mysterious stones move?

Early studies of the Sailing Stones began when geologists Allen Agnew and Jim McAllister mapped the area and noted the tracks left by the boulders in 1948.  After that, these Sailing Stones were forgotten or ignored  by scientists for two decades.

Then, in 1968, two scientists from the Institute of Technology
in California conducted an ambitious seven year study tracking the stones that involved painstakingly mapping their movements by noting their positions at regular intervals.  Although their data and their methods of observation were sound and well documented, their conclusions were found to be faulty.

In their report, the two geologists wrote that “the wind is able to pick up the rocks and start them moving.  They push aside the very slippery mud and slide along on the firm surface.”  According to Sharp and Carey, surface water would freeze overnight, creating a slippery surface upon which the rocks were propelled.

Admittedly, during the rainy season the water can flood the surface of the “playa” rather quickly, but the volume and the strength of the water current would simply not be enough to provide sufficient propulsion.

As I mentioned earlier, Carey and Sharp maintained that the rocks would sometimes zig-zag across the desert floor in these erratic patterns because of shifting winds. Even at first glance, this theory is flimsy at best.

Yet amazingly, it was widely accepted until 1991, when yet another geologist studied the enigmatic stones and brought his students along to test the validity of the earlier findings.

This time, John Reid from Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts and a group of students converged on the stones en masse, during a time where the weather conditions matched those stated in the 1968 study.  Reid and his students slid in the mud quite easily but they attempted as a group to push, shove and/or pull the rocks with ropes.  Yet nothing could budge them and despite their valiant efforts, the rocks remained stubbornly immobile.

“The Tristan Effect” is yet another theory that has recently been suggested.  The University of Zurich conducted research dealing with the actual physical properties of the rocks themselves.  Their theory maintains that the air within the porous interior of the rocks compresses during the sub-zero nights.

The next day, the intense desert heat and sun

causes the air inside to once again expand and thus propel the rocks along their paths.  However, this writer doubts the validity of the theory.

I highly doubt that anything short of an explosion would cause enough sudden changes in air pressure surrounding the rocks to cause them to move.  If that were the case, I would think the rocks would become unstable due to these repeated changes of internal pressure and eventually crumble.

Even now, the scientific community is still investigating and trying to discover just how these rocks move.  Currently, they are being tracked with GPS devices and satellite tracking.  It would also be interesting to discover if time lapse photography or video surveillance cameras could shed light on their movements.

Perhaps it is just a coincidence, but I continue to find it intriguing that these Sailing Stones happen to be in a reasonably close proximity to the famed Roswell Area 51.   Being interested in ancient ley lines and their alignments with heightened strengths of lines in the magnetic field of our planet, I can’t help but think there may be a connection.

For now, I suppose, our planet and these fascinating Sailing Stones will simply have to continue to mystify, enchant and baffle us.

http://scienceray.com

At the time, Mom’s question caught me by surprise: “Have you ever tried marijuana?” she asked, sloshing her coffee around in a mug as we stood together in the kitchen. My mind went blank. Could this be the fabled “drug talk” that parents are supposed to give to their teenage children? If so, why was I getting it at 30?

It turned out my mother was less interested in my drug use than her own. When I told her I’d smoked pot in college, and a bunch of times since, she took the news in stride. The thing was, she and my father were hoping to score some weed. Did I know anybody? Read the full story

Hello ladies and Gentlemen! Welcome back for another Case Review Series. In this series we will be delving deep into the Kennedy-King Conspiracy (JFK, RFK, and MLK) . Was there more than on shooter on the grassy knoll? Did RFK die by the hands of an Arab Extremist? Did LBJ have both Kennedy’s killed? Did George Bush Snr. help in anyway? Was MLK assassinated by the government? Was the 60’s the year of the great “clean” up? Let’s investigate and let’s see what the evidence leads for in:

John F. Kennedy: The Case Reviewed Read the full story

By Alexandria Sage

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – A California girl abducted at age 11 in 1991 has been found alive, police said on Thursday, adding her kidnapper apparently fathered two children with her and kept all three living in tents and sheds behind his house.

Jaycee Dugard had been missing since she was abducted near her home in South Lake Tahoe, east of San Francisco, on June 10, 1991, by two people in a gray sedan. Read the full story

Mercury, a vaccine preservative, was withdrawn from childhood jabs five years ago after evidence linked it to brain damage.

However, the Sunday Express has discovered the pandemic ­vaccine, to be rolled out across the country within weeks, contains the heavy metal. Read the full story