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News of the weird for today:


Bill Nye Seeks Restraining Order for Ex

Nov 22 12:20 AM US/Eastern


LOS ANGELES (AP) - Bill Nye wants his ex-fiancee out of his life and it's not just because of some bad chemistry.
Nye, who hosted the educational PBS series "Bill Nye, the Science Guy," is seeking a permanent restraining order against Blair Tindall, alleging she tried to poison his vegetable garden, according to court records.

He said Tindall came to his Studio City home late Sept. 3 dressed in black and carrying "two plastic bottles filled with some sort of solvent," according to court papers filed last week in Superior Court.

The bottles "may have been emptied on my garden from which I get food produce," he said in the filing. Nye is seeking to keep Tindall away from his home and from contacting him.

Nye, 51, identified Tindall as his ex-fiancee, even though the two announced in February 2006 that they were married by the Rev. Rick Warren, pastor and author of "The Purpose-Driven Life."

An after-hour call to Tindall's attorney was not immediately returned Wednesday.

Tindall, author of "Mozart in the Jungle" and a former concert oboist, admitted in a declaration that she emptied two bottles of weed killer in the garden.

In court papers posted on the Web site The Smoking Gun, Tindall said that after marrying Nye, the two bought the Studio City home for $1 million. But when they found out their marriage license was "invalid," Nye "ordered me not to move into our home" and the relationship ended.

Distress over the "faux marriage" and a series of financial and personal problems led to "a foolish, sophomoric act of poor judgment that was only intended to harm flowers, and certainly not people," she said.

Tindall said she has sought counseling and contends she is not a threat to Nye.

A hearing was scheduled Dec. 20 in the case.

Breitbart Breaking News

Sticking to the Science theme-- The Sun Might be smaller than we think?
Sun may be smaller than thought
10:48 19 November 2007
NewScientist.com news service
David Shiga



The Sun may be about 300 kilometres smaller than some previous measurements have suggested, if a new study is correct (Image: NASA)Tools Related ArticlesSun's 'twin' an ideal hunting ground for alien life
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Search New Scientist
Contact us
Web LinksWerner Schmutz, WRC
Alexander Kosovichev, Stanford University
Sun facts and figures, NASA
Sarbani Basuale University
The Sun may be smaller than we thought, a new study argues.
If correct, then other properties of the Sun such as its internal temperature and density may be slightly different than previously calculated. Understanding the Sun's interior is important as it might help scientists make predictions about space weather and answer questions about the solar system.
The Sun has no solid surface. Its atmosphere merely gets thinner and more transparent farther from its centre.
Instead the Sun's "surface" is defined to be the depth in the Sun's atmosphere where it becomes opaque to light. Scientists measure this by observing the Sun with telescopes and measuring the distance between the centre of the Sun's disc and its "edge" – the place where its brightness suddenly drops off. This gives a radius of 695,990 kilometres, or about 109 times the radius of Earth.
A second, completely different way to measure the Sun's size is by using surface gravity waves called f-modes that ripple across the surface of the Sun like water waves on the ocean.
Multiple choiceTheory implies that these waves should appear only at the Sun's opaque surface, and observations of them can be used to measure the Sun's radius, since their wavelength is tied to their distance from the Sun's centre in a predictable way.
Scientists have been puzzled for years because these methods give two different answers. The wave method gives a radius of around 695,700 kilometres, about 300 kilometres smaller than the result from the light drop-off measurement.
Although the difference amounts to just 0.04%, it is large enough to matter when scientists try to gain insights on the Sun's interior by interpreting observations of sound waves – which ripple the Sun's surface in addition to the f-modes – using a technique called helioseismology.


There is so much more to this story-- read the whole news story at:

New Scientist