Happy 48th Anniversary LASER!

Short for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation, or LASER (I learned that a few years after hearing the term in a cartoon show) is 48 years old today after its birth way back in 1960 by Theodore Maiman at Hughes Research Labs. Today, the laser is very prevalent in our everyday activities be it at work, at home or even at play. It has become a multi-billion dollar industry ranging from a simple pointer to the field of surgery. Our compact discs and DVD players are useless without laser. Even the military uses laser in weapons delivery for precision targets. Thanks to the genius of Theodore Maiman for his magnificent work. Mr. Maiman passsed away May 5 last year at the age of 79.



Although, there are many individuals who claimed for the accolade regarding the laser's invention, it was Maiman who completed the first working LASER. Its history dates back to Albert Einstein's Quantum Theory of Radiation, 1917, to the works of Charles Townes and Arthur Schawlow at Bell Labs, 1957, and Gordon Gould who first coined the term LASER in 1959.

Happy Mother's Day: Woman pregnant with 18th child

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) - It's a happy Mother's Day for an Arkansas woman — she's pregnant with her 18th child. Michelle Duggar, 41, is due on New Year's Day, and the latest addition will join seven sisters and 10 brothers. There are two sets of twins.

"We've had three in January, three in December. Those two months are a busy time for us," she said, laughing.

The Duggars' oldest child, Josh, is 20, and the youngest, Jennifer, is nine months old.

The fast-growing family lives in Tontitown in northwest Arkansas in a 7,000-square-foot home. All the children — whose names start with the letter J — are home-schooled.

Duggar has been been pregnant for more than 11 years of her life, and the family is in the process of filming another series for Discovery Health.

Man asks court to change his name to 'In God We Trust'

ZION, Ill. - Steve Kreuscher wants a judge to allow him to legally change his name. He wants to be known as "In God We Trust." Kreuscher (CROY'-shir) says the new name would symbolize the help God gave him through tough times.

The 57-year-old man also told the (Arlington Heights) Daily Herald he's worried that atheists may succeed in removing the phrase "In God We Trust" from U.S. currency.

He recalls that the phrase "God Reigns" was removed from the Zion city seal in 1992 after courts deemed it unconstitutional. Zion was founded as a theocracy — by a sect that believed the Earth was flat.

The school bus driver and amateur artist in the northern Chicago suburb says he has filed a petition to change his name in Lake County Circuit Court.

Japanese worker gets demoted over porn sites

TOKYO - (GMANews) A Japanese civil servant was demoted for viewing pornographic Web sites more than 780,000 times during office hours over a nine-month period, an official said Friday.

The man, an employee of the Kinokawa government in western Japan, visited porn sites from June last year to February 2008, Kinokawa official Tomiko Waki said. The man's name was withheld.

Despite his frequent porn viewing, none of his colleagues noticed his activities.