It appears that Ike could hit the Texas coast sometime this weekend. It’s a slow moving storm that has already caused havoc in Cuba and killed a few people.

Track the storm here.

The Scientific American claims that larger brain sizes may correlate with higher IQs!

In humans, brain size correlates, albeit somewhat weakly, with intelligence, at least when researchers control for a person’s sex (male brains are bigger) and age (older brains are smaller). Many modern studies have linked a larger brain, as measured by magnetic resonance imaging, to higher intellect, with total brain volume accounting for about 16 percent of the variance in IQ. But, as Einstein’s brain illustrates, the size of some brain areas may matter for intelligence much more than that of others does.

On the eve of the Democratic and Republican conventions, Blender Magazine polled Barack Obama and John McCain for their top 10 songs.

Sen. John McCain
1. Dancing Queen ABBA
2. Blue Bayou Roy Orbison
3. Take a Chance On Me ABBA
4. If We Make It Through December Merle Haggard
5. As Time Goes By Dooley Wilson
6. Good Vibrations The Beach Boys
7. What A Wonderful World Louis Armstrong
8. I’ve Got You Under My Skin Frank Sinatra
9. Sweet Caroline Neil Diamond
10. Smoke Gets In Your Eyes The Platters

ABBA? Really?

Sen. Barack Obama
1. Ready or Not Fugees
2. What’s Going On Marvin Gaye
3. I’m On Fire Bruce Springsteen
4. Gimme Shelter Rolling Stones
5. Sinnerman Nina Simone
6. Touch the Sky Kanye West
7. You’d Be So Easy to Love Frank Sinatra
8. Think Aretha Franklin
9. City of Blinding Lights U2
10. Yes We Can will.i.am

Political Wire has all of the candidates MP3s available for listening.

Sleeping actually makes you smarter!

The Scientific American reports:

The latest research suggests that while we are peacefully asleep our brain is busily processing the day’s information. It combs through recently formed memories, stabilizing, copying and filing them, so that they will be more useful the next day. A night of sleep can make memories resistant to interference from other information and allow us to recall them for use more effectively the next morning. And sleep not only strengthens memories, it also lets the brain sift through newly formed memories, possibly even identifying what is worth keeping and selectively maintaining or enhancing these aspects of a memory. When a picture contains both emotional and unemotional elements, sleep can save the important emotional parts and let the less relevant background drift away. It can analyze collections of memories to discover relations among them or identify the gist of a memory while the unnecessary details fade—perhaps even helping us find the meaning in what we have learned.

So make sure you get your full seven or eight hours of sleep the night before your first Government test! Log-off the computer, put the remote down, and GO TO BED!

I frequently use a utility called StumbleUpon to find new and interesting websites to use in the classroom.

While ‘Stumbling’ I came across this article, explaining how SU works.

You can ‘recommend’ any posting on MrOsman.com to StumbleUpon by clicking the SSU icon below – I recommend you do so!

John McCain referenced Paris Hilton in an ad attacking Barack Obama a few weeks ago.

Paris didn’t take kindly to it and struck back!

Click here to view the video.

She closes the ‘ad’ with the semi-presidential line, “I’m Paris Hilton, and I approve this message — because I think it’s totally hot.”

McCain’s camp responded wittily.

“It sounds like Paris Hilton supports John McCain’s ‘all of the above’ approach to America’s energy crisis – -including both alternatives and drilling. In reality, Paris Hilton may have a more substantive energy policy than Barack Obama,” spokesman Tucker Bounds said.

No word yet on if Paris Hilton is registered to vote.