Vancouver Hockey Riots

Soon after the Vancouver Canucks lost game 7 of the Stanley Cup hockey series to the Boston Bruins, rioting broke out. As the violence became more intense, we found numerous pictures on photo-sharing sites such as Twitpic and yfrog.

A car was set on fire, a truck was flipped over, and when police entered the area of downtown Vancouver with full riot gear, crazed fans were throwing beer bottles and shoes at their plastic shields, according to CTV News.

As the rioting intensified, so did the volume of user content on Twitter and Facebook. Even the Vancouver Police Department used Twitter to express its disappointment, tweeting, “So sad watching our #VPD cars on fire and how quickly people can turn from law abiding to law breaking. #canucksriot.”

Lunar Eclipse

The year's first total eclipse of the moon will last an unusually long time, a rare celestial treat for a wide swath of the globe.

Except if you're in the United States and Canada. North America will be left out of Wednesday's lunar spectacle, which will be visible from start to finish from eastern Africa, central Asia, the Middle East and western Australia – weather permitting.

The period when Earth's shadow completely blocks the moon – known as totality – will last a whopping 1 hour and 40 minutes. The last time the moon was covered for this long was in July 2000, when it lasted 7 minutes longer than that.

The full moon normally glows from reflected sunlight. A total lunar eclipse occurs when the moon glides through the long shadow cast by the Earth and is blocked from the sunlight that illuminates it.

As the moon plunges deeper into the Earth's shadow, the disk will appear to gradually change color, turning from silver to orange or red. This is because some indirect sunlight still reaches the moon after passing through the Earth's atmosphere, which scatters blue light. Only red light strikes the moon, giving it an eerie crimson hue.

It's difficult to predict the exact shade the moon will take, which will depend on how much dust and clouds are in the atmosphere during the eclipse.

Since the moon will pass close to the center of the Earth's shadow, the total eclipse phase will be longer than usual, said NASA eclipse expert Fred Espenak at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.

The entire eclipse will last a little over 5 1/2 hours. Observers in Europe will miss the first part of the show because it will occur before the moon rises. Eastern Asia and eastern Australia won't catch the final stages, which will happen after the moon sets. Portions of South America will be able see the moon entirely shrouded.

Unlike solar eclipses, lunar eclipses are safe to watch with the naked eye.

Keith Gleason, who runs the Sommers-Bausch Observatory in Boulder, Colo., is disappointed that he will not have a ringside seat to the upcoming eclipse. The last total lunar eclipse visible from the U.S. occurred on Dec. 21, 2010, which coincided with winter solstice and was widely observed. Some 1,400 people showed up for a viewing party at the observatory.

"We had an absolutely glorious time," he said.

The next total lunar eclipse will fall on Dec. 10 with best viewing from Asia and Australia. The moon will be completely blotted out for 51 minutes. Only parts of the U.S. including Hawaii and the Pacific Northwest will catch a glimpse.

The rest of the continental U.S. will have to wait until April 15, 2014 to witness a total lunar eclipse.

Flag Day

Here are some interesting facts about Flag Day in the United States, now celebrated every June 14th.

-There have been 27 different versions of the Star-Spangled Banner. The present flag bearing 50 stars became the country's official flag on July 4, 1960.
-The idea of celebrating the flag's birthday dates to June 14, 1889 when George Balch, a kindergarten teacher in New York City, planned flag appreciation ceremonies for the children of his school.  His idea of observing Flag Day was later adopted by the State Board of Education of New York and it grew from there.
-Many communities and a few states had celebrated Flag Day from around 1861 at the start of the American Civil War. However, it was not until 1916 that President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed June 14 as a national Flag Day, celebrating the adoption of the Stars and Stripes.

-Congressional legislation was signed by President Harry Truman in 1949 designating June 14 as National Flag Day. The law also called upon the president to issue a Flag Day proclamation every year.

-The flag's name, "Old Glory," purportedly came from Captain William Driver, a shipmaster from Salem, Massachusetts.  His friends gave him a brand new flag of 24 stars. As the banner was hoisted above his ship and caught the breeze, Driver exclaimed "Old Glory!"

The Hum

It's a menace that drives thousands to distraction and has been blamed on everything from UFOs to nuclear submarines. A scientist claims he's found the cause. Our man (who's heard it) listens in...

To the unaffected, it sounds suspiciously like a case of mass hysteria. It is the stuff of dark conspiracies, cover-ups and general spookiness. But to 'sufferers', if that is the right word, this mysterious throbbing noise, which never goes away and exists right on the brink of perception, is real and concrete enough to ruin lives.

I have only experienced 'The Hum' - at least, I assume it was The Hum - once. I was about eight or nine years old, and I remember becoming aware of a rumbling noise, half-way between a distant pneumatic drill and a badly tuned diesel engine. It happened in the dead of night, and kept me awake for hours.

I opened my window and turned my head this way and that in a futile attempt to locate the origin of the sound, which seemed to be emanating from the end of our quiet street.

'The Hum' has been blamed on many things, but one thing is sure: It is maddening for those who hear it

In desperation, I woke up the rest of my family to see if they could hear it - they couldn't - and I even got dressed and went out in search of the noise, accompanied by the dog.

It was all to no avail. No one could hear what I was hearing (not even the dog), and I never got to the bottom of the mystery of the noise. It returned on a couple of subsequent evenings and then vanished, never to be heard again - by me at least.

For the noise wasn't, it turns out, just a figment of my imagination. Indeed, The Hum - as it is now known - is a mysterious phenomenon which has been reported by thousands of people around the world.