East-Smithfield News

Soaring gasoline prices and temperatures didn't stop nearly 300 classic car owners from all over the region from converging on Big Flats on Sunday.

Robert Packer Hospital *STROPE -- A son, Wednesday, May 14, 2008, to Angel Strope of Towanda.

The East Smithfield Volunteer Fire Co. is planning its 60th Fourth of July celebration.

Diane Husted's volunteer work ranges from ambulance squad to food bank to Christmas charity, and more.

A landslide closed an Elizabeth Township street near Route 48 and the Boston Bridge through Monday morning.

A landslide in Elizabeth Township has closed down a local road today as crews remove a tree that has fallen from a hillside. via Kdka.com

“We were surprised so many people wanted to help”

EAST SMITHFIELD -- When Tressa Bishop taught her seventh-grade world history students a lesson about Egypt a few months ago, she also told them about recent events in neighboring countries as a geography ... via Star-Gazette

“Black Death did kill people who were otherwise healthy”

Clockwise from top left, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, John Lennon and George Harrison in 1965. via Washington Post - Science News

“Studying the Black Death is relevant today in that it gives us some insight into who might be at highest risk for new, emerging diseases like SARS and Ebola”

The report's conclusions, published in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggest that the Black Death -- the deadliest known epidemic in human history -- was selective in killing the ill, ... via Science Daily

“But we found quantitative evidence against the assumption that the Black Death killed indiscriminately. This runs contrary to what a lot of people thought.”

Everyone with an itch -- or a dog -- knows how blissful it is to scratch, and how hard it can be to stop. via Holland Sentinel

“When I went in on the first floor, it smelled like something was cooking on the stove”

An Ulster house fire brought out personnel from five departments and temporarily shut down Route 220 Sunday evening. via Daily and Sunday Review

“If it's goodbye cockroaches, then it's hello fungi”

Getting rid of vermin might not be beneficial If every rat, cockroach and bedbug disappeared from New York City, would that be a good thing, ecologically speaking? "We would avoid the diseases, bites and ... via Express India

Two interesting articles out in the PNAS early release feed. Molecular insights into human daily behavior : Human beings exhibit wide variation in their timing of daily behavior. via Gene Expression

“But there's been a tradition of thinking that the Black Death was this unique case where no one was safe and if you were exposed to the disease that was it. You had three to five days, and then you were dead”

The Black Death that decimated populations in Europe and elsewhere during the middle of the 14th century may not have been a blindly indiscriminate killer, as some experts have believed. via AlertNet

Taxpayers spent almost $483,000 to provide a legal defense for Donna Moonda, the Pennsylvania woman convicted last summer of arranging her husband's murder on the Ohio Turnpike. via Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

“This, of course, is the biggest one of the year for us”

Some twinkle, some flash, some even keep rhythm to Christmas carols. Whatever people's tastes are in holiday decorations they are an inevitable portion of our landscape at the holidays. via Daily and Sunday Review